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Updated: May 27, 2025
A band of ospreys, in a place where there happens to be many of them together, have been known to unite and drive the eagles off. That, I suppose, must be looked upon in the light of a successful revolution." The conversation was here interrupted by another incident. The ospreys had again gone out fishing, and, at this moment, one of them was seen to pounce down and take a fish from the water.
He chased the unmigratory tropi-ducks from their shrewd-hidden nests, walked circumspectly among the crocodiles hauled out of water for slumber, and crept under the jungle-roof and spied upon the snow-white saucy cockatoos, the fierce ospreys, the heavy- flighted buzzards, the lories and kingfishers, and the absurdly garrulous little pygmy parrots.
We had also seen many other birds during the day eagles, hawks, ravens, ospreys, prairie-chickens, grouse, mocking-birds, and woodpeckers; while we caught sight of several kinds of deer, elk, and mountain sheep. Even buffalo had made their way into the valley. Grizzly bears and panthers, too, we had good reason to fear, abounded, and were likely to be troublesome to us.
Here could be seen the ospreys, sailing in graceful pairs above the herrings' or the old wives' shoals, taking with elegance and conscientiousness the daily animal food that even man demands, with all his sentiments and gospels. There the canvas-back duck, in a little flock, broke the Sabbath to dive for the wild celery that grows beneath the sound.
Louie, the Dane, said that while the Claimant was on board his ship he amused himself by picking oakum and reading "The Garden of the Soul." There were several Ospreys spoken to as having picked up the Claimant after the wreck of the Bella, and the defendant had not the least idea which one was the best to carry him safely into harbour.
Nuttall mentions that "The ancients, particularly Aristotle, pretended that the ospreys taught their young to gaze at the sun, and those who were unable to do so were destroyed. Linnaeus even believed, on ancient authority, that one of the feet of this bird had all the toes divided, while the other was partly webbed, so that it could swim with one foot, and grasp a fish with the other."
Curlews, ptarmigans, cormorants, and ospreys are also seen in greater or less numbers. The steamer lands us for a few hours at Tromsöe, a small island in latitude 69° 38´ north, a thriving place of six thousand inhabitants, a goodly number for a town within the Arctic Circle. It is the capital of Norwegian Lapland. Both to the north and south of the town snow-clad mountains shut off distant views.
Ospreys fish in the waters of the shallow lake behind, and the scales of their prey flash in the sun of morning as they rise dripping from the dive. In this place Sholto, Malise, and the Lord James Douglas were presently abiding. It was but a tiny cell, originally formed by two portions of marly rock fallen together in some ancient convulsion or dropped upon each other from a floating iceberg.
When he was hungry and had found nothing himself, and his two eaglets, far away in their nest on the mountain, needed a bite of fish to vary their diet, he would set his wings to the breeze and mount up till he could see both ospreys at their fishing.
In fact, this creature may be regarded as a sort of connecting link between the birds of prey who make their home on the dry land, and the web-footed birds that equally lead a predatory life upon the sea. Perhaps it continues the chain begun by the ospreys and sea-eagles, who take most of their food out of the water, but do not stray far from the shore in search of it.
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