Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/43

Rh hand, but when seen at a distance it has nothing of the imposing aspect of the Sea Eagle. In fact, one who has not been accustomed to notice birds may easily pass it by as some vulgar fowl of the kite sort. In the Ratnagiri district I have seldom met a native who could give me a name for it. Yet the Osprey, when once you know it, is not to be confounded with anything else. There it sits on the point of a fishing stake, a dark-brown bird with a white cap, the breast and under parts also white, but interrupted by a necklace of brown beads; there is nothing else like it. And when it flies it is equally peculiar: its wings are very long, and it beats the air rapidly with the points of them. And if you are still in doubt, the matter is settled when it suddenly closes its wings and from a height of forty or fifty feet falls headlong into the water. That is one of the finest sights I know. With a tremendous splash the sea receives the bird and closes over it, and a ring of expanding waves starts from the spot where it perished. But a second later it reappears, and, lifting itself and a great fish out of the heaving water, shakes the drops off its shoulders with a peculiar shrug and hies to a favourite rock, white with the remains of many fish dinners. This is a marvellous feat, especially when you remember that, like all birds of prey, the Osprey strikes with its feet and not with its beak. The fishes which it catches are sometimes so heavy that it can scarcely carry them to the nearest land. It is often pursued and forced to deliver up its well earned booty by its more powerful, but less plucky and skilful, neighbour, the Sea Eagle.