246 Life and Immortality. 
especially when the weather is remarkably fine, as late as the 
fifteenth of October. Well-established communities, num- 
bering more than fifty pairs, have been met within the 
swamps of Southern New Jersey, among whom the best 
order and most perfect harmony prevailed. Few species dis- 
play less shyness and greater confidence, or are more emi- 
nently social, as is particularly shown when these birds take 
up their quarters in close proximity to occupied dwellings, or 
by the side of frequented by-paths and highways. Where 
undisturbed, the same localities are visited year after year. 
Their exclusive piscine habits secure for them free and un- 
limited sway in their carefully chosen abodes, for the poul- 
try has nothing to fear, and the smaller birds are not intim- 
idated by their presence and sent screaming to their coverts 
as they do even when pursued by the little sparrow hawk. 
Wilson cites a case where four nests of the common purple 
grackle were built within the interstices of an Osprey’s nest, 
and a fifth on an adjoining branch, and the Osprey was quite 
tolerant of such intrusion and freedom. The writer has ob- 
served a nest of the grackle built in a similar position, while 
all around the great Hawk’s home, and scarcely five rods dis- 
tant, were nests of the robin, wood thrush, red-winged black- 
bird and others, and no annoyance was known to occur, 
the Ospreys carefully attending to their own business and 
scarcely noticing their more humble brethren. 
Their bitterest enemy is the white-headed eagle, against 
whom the united attacks of many of these birds are concen- 
trated when he has the audacity to venture within their 
hunting-grounds or breeding-quarters, for they are too 
familiar with his powerful muscularity and courageous dis- 
position to attempt a single attack. When an Osprey is 
pursued by this king of the forest and hunting-ground, his 
loud, vociferous cries of distress, resounding far and near, 
evoke an army of defenders, who come with all possible 
speed to wreak vengeance upon the great arch-enemy of 
their pleasures and happiness. These attacks are made for 
