No human mother manifests deeper affection for her children than does this bird of the prairie for hers. She fondles and dries them after they have escaped from their prison-houses, and tenderly helps them out of the nest. It is now that her cares may be said to commence. Where their interest and well-being are concerned, hardly any responsibility is too great for her to assume. She leads them into pleasant pastures, teaches them to know good from bad foods, and acquaints them with all the devices and subterfuges practised for eluding man and other enemies. But it is not long that they are thus subservient to maternal wisdom and forethought, for in fourteen days they are old enough to scratch for a living, and to seek shelter and security from lawlessness and cruelty. Their _menu_ consists of wheat, berries, grasses, earth-worms, and all kinds of terrestrial insects. When summer is over, the different families of the same neighborhood come together, unite in one large flock, and travel over the country for food. The males emerge from their meeting-places and join the moving army, and parents and young have nothing to do but to feed vigorously and grow fat. Late in October, or early in November, they begin to attract the attention of gunners, and thousands are killed for the market, where they are in eager demand by all lovers of good living. AMERICAN OSPREY. _Pandion haliætus_, as the Fish Hawk or Osprey is called in ornithological language, is found from the fur region surrounding Hudson’s Bay to Central America, and from Labrador to Florida, excepting Boston Harbor, on the Atlantic Coast, and almost from Alaska to the southern extremity of the peninsula of Lower California on the Pacific seaboard. Birds have been known to nest on the rocky islands of California, and about Sitka, according to Bischoff, as well as along the small streams in the vicinity of Nulato. From Long Island to Chesapeake they breed in vast communities, which often number several hundred pairs, but away from the sea-coast they are only occasionally met with on the margins of rivers and lakes. Dr. Hayden found several pairs nesting on the summit of high cottonwood trees in the Wind River Mountains, and Mr. Allen observed the birds particularly abundant about the lakes of the Upper St. John’s River in Florida, six nests being noticeable within a single circle of vision. Salvin claims that they nest on both coasts of Central America, but more especially about Balize, although on the islands of Trinidad, St. Croix, Jamaica and Cuba they are seen at all times except during the breeding-season.