ACCIPITER PISCATORIUS original Latin: "Accipiter Piscatorius," the Fishing Hawk or Osprey.

The Fishing Hawk.

A detailed hand-colored engraving shows an osprey in a downward-swooping posture. The bird's plumage is dark brown on its wings and tail, with fine lighter brown scalloping on the wing coverts. Its breast and head are white, with a characteristic dark stripe running through its yellow eye to the nape. Its powerful blue-scaled legs and sharp black talons are firmly embedded in the back of a large silvery-green fish. The bird appears to be lifting or holding the fish against a patch of reddish-brown earth or rock. The rest of the background is blank.

An ornamental drop cap letter T contains a landscape with a tower or castle.

THIS Bird weighs three pounds and a quarter; from one end of the wing to the other extended, it measures five feet, five inches. The Bill is black, with a blue cere The "cere" is the fleshy, waxy patch at the base of a bird's beak.; the Iris of the eye is yellow; the Crown of the head is brown, with a mixture of white feathers. From each Eye, backwards, runs a brown stripe; all the upper part of the Back, Wing, and Tail are dark-brown; the Throat, Neck, and Belly are white. The Legs and Feet are remarkably rough and scaly, and almost of a pale-blue colour; the Talons are black, and almost of an equal size. The Feathers of the Thighs are short, and adhere close to them, contrary to others of the Hawk kind; which Nature seems to have designed for their more easy penetrating the water.

Their manner of fishing is (after hovering a while over the water) to precipitate into it with prodigious swiftness; where it remains for some minutes, and seldom rises without a fish. The Bald Eagle (which is generally on the watch) no sooner spies this, but at him furiously he flies. The Hawk mounts, screaming out, but the Eagle always soars above him, and compels the Hawk to let it fall; which the Eagle seldom fails of catching before it reaches the Water. It is remarkable, that whenever the Hawk catches a Fish, he calls, as if it were, for the Eagle; who always obeys the call, if within hearing.

The lower parts of the Rivers and Creeks near the sea abound most...