122 THE OSPREY 



persuade to spare anything in the nature of a hawk. 

 If the fishing in one loch turns out unsatisfactory, the 

 osprey thinks nothing of a trip to another, perhaps two 

 or three hundred miles away, or to the sea. Hence, 

 when game preservation .was carried to a high pitch in 

 Scotland, very few young ospreys escaped destruction ; 

 and now, what was once one of the common birds of 

 prey in mountainous districts has become almost, if 

 not quite, the rarest. There were several breeding 

 stations in the Highlands when Charles St. John knew 

 and loved them, but the work of destruction had begun 

 before the nineteenth century had passed its middle 

 term. That keen-sighted field-naturalist was also an 

 ardent angler, but he never grudged the osprey a fair 

 share of trout and grilse, and he protested warmly 

 against its persecution. 



' Why the poor osprey should be persecuted,' says he, 

 ' I know not, as it is quite harmless, living wholly on 

 fish, of which there is too great an abundance in this 

 country for the most rigid preserver to grudge this 

 picturesque bird his share.' 



' Picturesque ' is but a feeble epithet to apply to such 

 a master of wingmanship. There is no more fascinat- 

 ing display in bird life than is presented by an osprey 

 circling high over the dark waters of a Highland loch, 

 when he suddenly contracts his wingspread and, falling 

 headlong into the waves, emerges with a trout or pike 

 in his rough talons, carrying his prey not clumsily 

 athwart-ships, but lengthways, parallel with his own 

 body. One knows not which to pronounce most admir- 

 able — the quickness of vision, the certainty of aim, the 



