AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



FISH-HAWK, OR OSPREY- 

 FALCO HALIMTUS. 

 [Plate XXXVII.— Fig. L] 



Carolina Osprey^ Lath. Syn. I, />. 46 — 26. A.—Falco piscator, Briss, p, 361s 14. 862* 

 15. — Faucon pecheur de la Caroline^ Buff. I, p. 142. — Fishing Hawk, Catesb. Car. I^ 

 p. 2. — TuRT. Syst, I, 149. — Peale's Museum, No, 144. 



THIS formidable, vigorous-winged, and well known bird, sub- 

 sists altogether on the finny tribes that swarm in our bays, creeks^ 

 and rivers ; procuring his prey by his own active skill and indus- 

 try ] and seeming no farther dependant on the land than as a mere 

 resting place, or, in the usual season, a spot of deposit for his nest^ 

 eggs and young. The figure here given is reduced to one-third the 

 size of life, to correspond with that of the Bald Eagle^ his common 

 attendant, and constant plunderer. 



The Fish-Hawk is migratory ; arriving on the coasts of New 

 York and New Jersey about the twenty-first of March, and re- 

 tiring to the south about the twenty-second of September. Heavy 

 equinoctial storms may vary these periods of arrival and departure 

 a few days; but long observation has ascertained^ that they are 

 kept with remarkable regularity. On the arrival of these birds in 

 the northern parts of the United States, in March, they sometimes 

 find the bays and ponds frozen, and experience a difficulty in pro- 

 curing fish for many days. Yet there is no instance on record of 

 their attacking birds, or inferior land animals, with intent to feed 



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