106 
FISH HAWK, OR OSPREY. 
them from their haunts, but seldom or never attacking them 
in single combat. 
The first appearance of the Fish Hawk in spring, is wel- 
comed by the fishermen, as the happy signal of the approach 
of those vast shoals of herring, shad, &c. that regularly arrive 
on our coasts, and enter our rivers in such prodigious multi- 
tudes. Two of a trade, it is said, seldom agree ; the adage 
however, will not hold good in the present case, for such is 
the respect paid the Fish Hawk, not only by this class of 
men, but, generally, by the whole neighbourhood where it 
resides, that a person who should attempt to shoot one of 
them, would stand a fair chance of being insulted. This 
prepossession in favour of the Fish Hawk is honourable to 
their feelings. They associate, with its first appearance, 
ideas of plenty, and all the gaiety of business ; they see it 
active and industrious like themselves; inoffensive to the 
productions of their farms; building with confidence, and 
without the least disposition to concealment, in the middle of 
their fields, and along their fences ; and returning, year after 
year, regularly to its former abode. 
The nest of the Fish Hawk is usually built on the top of a 
dead, or decaying tree, sometimes not more than fifteen, 
often upwards of fifty feet, from the ground. It has been 
remarked by the people of the sea coasts, that the most 
thriving tree will die in a few years after being taken posses- 
sion of by the Fish Hawk. This is attributed to the fish oil, 
and to the excrements of the bird; but is more probably 
occasioned by the large heap of wet salt materials of which 
the nest is usually composed. In my late excursions to the 
sea shore, I ascended to several of these nests that had been 
built in from year to year, and found them constructed as 
follows : — Externally, large sticks, from half an inch to an 
inch and a half in diameter, and two or three feet in length, 
piled to the height of four or five feet, and from two to three 
feet in breadth; these were intermixed w r ith corn stalks, sea- 
weed, pieces of wet turf, in large quantities, mullein stalks. 
