96 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



in such numbers, whirling and tumbling amidst a chaos 

 of floating feathers through the air, that it was impossible 

 for a time to distinguish which was the Eagle, until, 

 having got enough of it amidst such fearful odds, he would 

 fairly turn tail, and would dart hurriedly toward the shelter 

 of the heavy forest to shake ofi" his foes." 



As befits so expert a fisher, the Osprey's talons are very 

 strong ; and the feet, which are a steely blue in colour, 

 are rough and prickly on the under sides, enabling their 

 OAvner to get a firmer grip of the wet, slippery, squirming 

 fish. 



Here is a good description by the writer above referred 

 to: "The Osprey fishes just as readily in the sea as in 

 fresh water, and suits its nest to the kind of neighbour- 

 hood it has come to. In treeless steppes it builds on the 

 bare ground ; and by the sea, in the steepest precipices, as 

 well as on the lowest coral-reefs. In well- wooded countries 

 it chooses tall thick trees, but, in the high mountains, the 

 most inaccessible places in the rocks." The nest is very 

 large and coarsely made. 



It has been said that none of the Eagles are so widely 

 and evenly spread over the world as the Osprey. It is 

 known in Europe, Asia, North Africa, North America, and 

 Australia ; in Europe the great high-built nest may be 

 found from Lapland to Portugal and from the North of 

 Russia to the Caspian. 



But it would seem as if Ospreys could be scared away 

 from neighbourhoods where once they were common. " In 

 Austria the Osprey occurs everywhere," the late Prince 

 Rudolph reported, and the record of his expedition on the 

 Danube, in 1878, abounds in allusions to this bird. Yet 

 Mr. R. B. Lodge, in his recent book of travels in the 

 Balkans, says that travelling over much of the same 



