Auk, XII, July, 1895, pp.3*o-/ . 
Ospreys at Bristol, R. I. — All along the shores of Mount Hope Bay on 
the promontory of Bristol, Rhode Island, the Osprey breeds in com- 
paratively large numbers. Although the surrounding country is geologi- 
cally the same in character yet only few nests are to be found elsewhere. 
The island of Rhode Island itself, I believe, has a few nests on its shores 
and near Wickford and along the Providence River a half dozen or so 
scattered pairs breed. 
But there is in Bristol proper each summer, a colony, if so it can be 
called, consisting of fifteen pairs. Seven of the nests are in dead button- 
wood trees ( Platanus occidentalism and the remaining eight are built on 
a kind of structure erected by the farmers for their convenience; namely, 
a stout pole, averaging twenty-five feet in height, on the top of which an 
old cart wheel has been placed. In some instances a crossbar forming a 
perch is nailed just below or on the upper side of the wheel. 
After a new pole has been raised, which is generally in the autumn, 
the coming spring sees it taken by a pair of Hawks. The farmers claim 
that the birds arrive regularly on the tenth of April, that is at the depart- 
ure of the Gulls northward. They immediately commence repairing the 
damage done to their home during the past winter. At this time they 
can be seen flying about with long streamers of eel-grass trailing from 
their talons. From yearly additions the nests reach enormous dimen- 
sions and between the spokes of the wheels and among the heavy sticks 
that form the base, English Sparrows [Passer domesticus ) build. About 
the first week in May the females lay three eggs (very rarely four) and 
by the last of the month or in the first week in June the fluffy bodies 
of the young can be seen above the edge of the nest. By the middle of 
August they are able to care for themselves. 
In one of the pole nests in the summer of 1890 the birds had, either in 
repairing it or in some other way, brought a bulb or seed of a weed to 
the nest where, cultivated by the decayed fish, it grew to the height of 
two or three feet. They paid no attention to it and in the course of a 
few weeks it withered and died. 
The Osprey obtains the greater part of its living in Bristol from the 
fish seines that run out from the shores in every feasible place, and the 
Hawks are to be seen at all hours of the day sitting on the poles that 
support the nets, now and then driving in, or rather dropping down, to 
obtain some denizen that it contains. In the noonday numbers of 
Hawks gather over the bay and fields and, mounting high in the air, 
circle round and round, uttering a combination of piercing, musical cries, 
which the farmers insist upon calling a song. This song, if so it can be 
called, begins with three notes in the same key, then two in a higher, 
and then the completing note in the same key with the first three. If 
the cry of any Hawk can be spoken of as a song, these six musical notes 
of the Osprey are certainly as near to it as any. 
The Ospreys in Bristol have been so carefully watched, — as the belief 
among the farmers is that they protect their poultry from other maraud- 
ing Hawks, — that they have become very tame and only when the eggs 
are nearly hatched or when the young are in the nest do they pay any 
heed to a passer by. Their dislike for dogs is apparently stronger chan 
for men, yet I have never seen them strike either. 
In the last week of October or the first in November they leave for the 
south and are replaced by the Gulls. The colonies in New Jersey and on 
Plum Island are of course much larger but almost every year new pole 
nests are added to the colony in Bristol and the future may see a much 
larger community. — Reginald Heber IIowe, Jr., Boston , Mass. 
A Large Brood d^'d)'^pre^T— A ^Pciir , o^ C t^s^fe^s (. Pandion haliaetus 
carolinensis ) that build on one of the pole nests in Bristol, R. I. (see 
‘Auk,’ Vol. XII, No. 3, p. 300), raised last spring (1895) a brood of 
seven young. On the nth of June two of the nestlings, about the size 
of squabs, were picked up dead under the nest and on the twenty-sixth 
of the same month another young bird was also found dead at the foot 
of the pole. In the latter part of July the nest contained four almost 
fully fledged young. This is the largest brood of Ospreys I have ever 
heard of being raised in a season, and from all appearances the seven 
eggs must have been laid in seven or eight days. — Reginald Heber 
IIowe, Jr., Brookline , Mass. 
