FISH-FLY, one of the aquatic neuropter ous insects of the family Sialidee, and especially of the genus Chauliodes, represented by the hellgrammite and other species whose crawling larvw are useful as fish-bait. See CORYDALIS.
or OSPREY. This almost cosmopolitan bird is known throughout North America as the "fish-hawk,° never in popular speech as "osprey?' The species (Pandion haliaitus) occurs on all continents, gathering in the neighborhood of the sea and other large bodies of water, where it dexterously procures the living fish that constitute its food, by plung ing from a great height and seizing them in its talons. These gains it is frequently obliged to relinquish to the fish-loving sea-eagles, espe cially our own bald eagle, which pounces upon the osprey and forces it to drop its property to be caught and swallowed by the robber. Fish-hawks have increased rather than dimin ished in most of their American haunts where they are protected by law and good-nature, and for the picturesqueness they lend to the land scape. Their nests are huge masses of sticks, placed on a ledge of rocks, or along low shores, in trees, and reoccupied for a long series of years. On the New England coast fish-hawks often make nests in belfries or on platforms set up on stout poles for their accommodation.
In the absence of trees it will form a great heap of sticks on the ground. The eggs are dirty white, marked with irregular purplish find rad•brown blotches. This fine hawk (Pandios halialtus) is about 25 inches long, and has long pointed wings giving it great power and grace in flight. The general color of the upper parts is brown, but the head, neck and all under parts are white, except a band of brown spots across the breast. It stands alone among fal coniform birds in a family (Pandionida') equiv alent in rank to the Falconide, from which it essentially differs in the reversibility of the outer toe; the toes are nearly equal, and have no connecting membrane, but with spicules on their under surfaces and much curved claws enabling the birds to take a firm hold of their slippery prey. A general guide to further information as to the osprey in the Old World may be found in Newman's of Ornithology' ; and as to the American fish-hawk, in Dr. Fisher's 'Hawks and Owls of the United States' ; Bar rows' Birds of Michigan> and other books mentioned under Bran.