PANDION HALIAETUS: OSPREY ; FISH HAWK. 1 27 



such as are affected by the Harriers and Short-eared 

 Owls, it is almost necessarily local and scattering. 

 Though of great size, its prey is very humble, consisting 

 chiefly of mice, reptiles, and insects. The nest is placed 

 indifferently on trees or cliffs. The eggs, three or four 

 in number, and measuring about 2^ by i| inches, run 

 through the usual variations, from dull whitish, scarcely 

 or not at all marked, to drab or creamy, largely blotched 

 with different shades of brown, sometimes mixed with 

 purplish slate markings. 



Although belonging to a group technically said to be 

 " ruling " Buzzards (" Archibuteo "), it is difficult to see 

 where the claim to royal purple lies in this species and 

 others of the same genus, for they certainly lack the 

 qualities that go to make hawks famous. Viewing their 

 splendid presence, we wonder, as a late writer says, 

 "that the object of such an admirable organization is 

 nothing more important than the destruction df the 

 smallest and most defenceless of quadrupeds or of 

 reptiles. Yet such is apparently the case. Many of the 

 birds of this group, though powerful in structure, and 

 furnished with the usual apparatus of strong and sharp 

 bill and claws, and other accompaniments of predatory 

 habits, rarely attack any animal more formidable than a 

 mouse or ground squirrel, or in some cases a frog or 

 other of the weaker species of reptiles." 



OSPREY; FISH HAWK. 



PaNDION HALIAETUS (Z.) SuV. 



Chars. Plumage lacking aftershafts, compact, imbricated, oily, to 

 resist water ; that of the legs short and close, not forming the 



