1 
10 FALCON ID/E. 
liead towards the iiioutli of the large trout burn, rose with 
circling fight, and after poising himself for a single second, 
dropped like a stone into the water. Although but partly 
submerged, the spray caused by the descent almost concealed 
him from view, but in a marvellously brief interval he was 
making off wdth a fine sea-trout in his talons, to a boat 
moored at a little distance, w^here, considering himself safe 
from interruption, he perched upon the gunwale, and then 
finished his meal. This same bird was shot and brought to 
me a few days afterwards, and proved to be a very handsome 
male. 
A singular instance of sudden terror instantaneously sub- 
dued occurred near the same sj)ot. Seeing an Osprey with a 
fish in his claw^s flying across the water, at a considerable 
distance from the surface, I A^entured a shot with a ball, miss- 
ing as usual. With a start and a cry, possibly of alarm at 
the sound of the missile, the bird suffered its j)rey to fall, but 
the latter had only dropped a very few yards, when, with a 
sudden dash, it was recovered while yet in the air, and carried 
away to the summit of an opposite cliff, where by means of my 
telescope I w^atched the subsequent repast. 
Again, at the same place, an Osprey was observed to carry 
a fish to the gunwale of a boat anchored off the bay, and begin 
feeding. By the time the fish was probably about half de- 
voured, by some unaccountable mischance it was allowed to 
slip overboard. In this case the bird behaved very differ- 
ently; for, instead of attempting to recover the lost morsel, 
which might have been done with the greatest ease, it merely 
looked at it with outstretched neck for a few mon^nts, and 
then hew away. 
Altliough the Osprey will sometimes alight upon a hat 
surface for the purpose of devouring its prey, it seems to 
prefer a railing, the top of a wall, an isolated rock, or, in fact, 
any situation from which it can readily observe the approach 
of an enemy. Nevertheless, most of those wdiich hnd their 
way into (collections are shot in such situations while absorlied 
