4<3 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BERMUDAS. 



quarter. Mr. Wedderburn, who was shooting in the same 

 marsh, showed us a beautiful specimen of some unknown 

 Crake, which he had just killed. We then proceeded to the 

 marshes near Spanish Point. Here I had the satisfaction 

 of seeing an Osprey {Pandion halicetus) soaring over a creek 

 in which the Major's spaniel was swimming after a Sand- 

 piper that had been wounded just before, and which dived 

 with all the ease of a duck. The Sandpiper escaped among 

 some small mangrove bushes, and the Osprey took up a 

 position on the top of a neighbouring cedar tree. As it was 

 not within range of shot, the Major concealed himself in the 

 brushwood while I endeavoured to approach the Osprey by 

 making a circuit to the rear. I had proceeded a very short 

 distance when this noble bird came down directly for the 

 spot where the Sandpiper was lost, and near where the 

 Major was laying wait for him. He was shot by the Major, 

 and proved a fine male specimen of his kind. Length 

 twenty-five inches, colour of the upper plumage a rich dark 

 brown, each feather margined with yellowish white, and 

 more or less tipped with the same colour, particularly the 

 interscapulars. The wing coverts, the tail feathers and the 

 primaries, and the secondaries are also tipped or margined 

 with the same. Shafts of tail feathers whitish. We also 

 saw a small bird of the Water Rail kind, nearly black, which 

 I missed, but which I have no doubt will prove a new bird 

 to our Bermuda list. 



October \6th, 1847. — A deluge of rain having fallen during 

 the night, I arose at daylight to look out of my bed-room 

 window, and soon afterwards observed our tame pigeons 

 rush from the top of the house to their own cot below the 

 window. A small Hawk, which I took to be the Falco 

 sparverius, or American Sparrow Hawk of Wilson — it was 

 barely the size of a pigeon — made a dash at the pigeon-house 



