the sea. I am acquainted with several occurrences
in our county—Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, and,
if my memory serves me correctly, more than one
in Warwickshire, and on one occasion had the great
delight of watching an Osprey fishing at his ease,
though without success, on a broad reach of our
principal river, the Nen. My earliest acquaintance
with this species was made upon the shores of the
Lake of Geneva, near Lausanne, where, in March
and early April, one or two were constantly to be seen
sailing at no great height above the water, and
occasionally dashing at the fishes that frequented it;
so far as I could then make out, small perch were
the most frequent victims. I have subsequently met
with Ospreys throughout the Mediterranean, from
Gibraltar to the Ionian Islands and the adjacent
Turkish mainland. A pair of these birds nested
regularly, and may, for all that I know to the contrary,
do so still, on the Mediterranean side of the Rock of
Gibraltar; Colonel Irby showed me this nest in June
1869, when it contained young, and he has published
some interesting details with reference to the Osprey
and its habits in that part of the world in his exhaustive
work on the ‘ Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar.’
I know of several nesting-places of the Osprey on
certain Mediterranean islands, and feel no doubt that
a pair constantly observed by us in May 1876 about
the harbour of Santander had a nest in that neighbourhood,
although we failed to discover it. From
my experience I think that the Osprey prefers the
bare limb of a high tree, or the top of a post or
fishing-stake, to a rock, for taking its meals upon;
but, of course, when the captured fish is heavy the
birds avail themselves of the first convenient dinner-
table, and I have more than once seen them alight
with their prey on the bare sandy shore. In the
case of large fishes I think that the Osprey seldom
touches the head, and certainly avoids the larger bones.
I have found the almost entire skeletons of large
mullets with heads and tails intact, but with every
scrap of flesh and skin devoured by our birds.
The appearance of the Osprey on wing is most
singularly graceful, the long and, comparatively speaking,
narrow wings, and the peculiar angle at which they
are spread whilst the bird is hunting for its prey,
distinguish it at any distance from any other European
species. Although this bird very frequently hovers
for a second or two before making its stoop, it generally
dashes at its ' quarry ’ from a certain height, and often
seems simply to lift it from the water in its talons.
On the other hand, it is common to see the Osprey
plunge headlong below the surface for an instant;
I need hardly say that it does not pursue fishes under
water. The method of the Osprey differs from that
of the Falcons in this particular, that whereas the latter
birds on missing their quarry at the first stoop almost
invariably mount before making a second, the present
bird, if its intended victim moves during the stoop,
checks its flight for a moment and makes another
attempt from the lower “ pitch.” I trust that my
readers will pardon my use of the technical terms of
falconry in treating of a fish-eating bird, but I can