OSPEEY. 



PANDION HALIAETUS [Linn.). 



Falco halisetus, Linn. S. N. i. p. 129 (1766). 

 Falco haliaetos, Naum. i. p. 241. 



Pandion haliaetus, Macg. iii. p. 239; Dresser, vi. p. 139. 

 Pandion haliseetus, Hewitson, i. p. 19 ; Yarr. ed. 4, i. p. 30. 



Balbusard, French ; Fluss-Adler, Fisch-Adler, German j 

 Aguila pescador, Spanish. 



These beautiful birds visit Great Britain in March, 

 and are too often massacred during their short stay 

 on the English estuaries on their way to their nesting- 

 haunts in Scotland and Northern Europe. In 1832 

 Sir William Jardine, as quoted in Yarrell's ' British 

 Birds,' wrote that a pair or two might be found about 

 most of the Highland Lochs, where they built either 

 on ruined towers or aged trees. Between 1849 and 

 1857 Mr. Wolley found that so many Ospreys had 

 been destroyed in the Scottish Highlands that most 

 of their recorded breeding-places were deserted, and 

 at the present day a very few pairs only annually 

 breed there under strict and most laudable protection. 



The Osprey returns southwards about the beginning 

 of September, and on both passages frequently follows 

 the course of rivers to a considerable distance from 



