This is a family of birds of prey. That is, birds who live entirely on living animals, which they hunt and catch for themselves. Owls are also birds of prey, but they do their hunting by night, while this family work by day.

Like all birds, hawks are well fitted for what they have to do. They have long wings, so that they can fly swiftly and long at a time, to follow up the prey. They have sharp, curved claws, made for grasping and holding things. Their hooked beak is the best kind for cutting and tearing meat.

Most of these birds work for us the whole time, as do the owls. For they eat the same destructive animals, and they eat an enormous number. Yet we have a foolish prejudice against them, because two or three of them sometimes take poultry and game birds. Even when these birds do take our poultry and game birds, some good is done. For they naturally catch the weak ones who are not able to get out of their way. And it is better for the whole race of these birds that the weak ones should not live. It leaves the rest stronger, and better able to make their way in the world.

This family is found all over the world. It includes birds of all sizes, from one as small as a sparrow to one who spreads his wings ten feet. In our country we have neither the smallest nor the largest. Of those you are likely to see, the least is the American Sparrow Hawk, who is not much larger than a robin, and the greatest is the Bald Eagle, who is sometimes a yard from the tip of his beak to the end of his tail.

Hawks have wonderful eyes like a telescope and microscope in one, as I have told you in "The First Book of Birds." In eating without knife and fork, they often swallow food whole and throw up castings like the owls.

In catching their prey these birds use their feet instead of their beaks. Even those who hunt grasshoppers and crickets seize them in their claws. Their feet are quite as useful as hands. In them they carry material for the nest as well as food for the little ones. The claws are powerful weapons of war, too. A hawk who is ready to fight throws himself on his back and presents his claws to the enemy. Few people would like to be grappled by those terrible claws.

Hawks and eagles have wonderful wing power. Some of them can stay far up in the air an hour at a time. They go up in great circles with wings held stiffly out and not beating, till out of sight. Men have not yet been able to see quite how it is done. It is probably by using the wings as sailors use their sails, and making the wind carry them.

The one of this family I shall tell you about is the Fish Hawk, or American Osprey, because he is found all over the United States. He is one of those which you will be most likely to see, and want to know about.

The osprey is a large bird, about two feet long. He is dressed in chocolate brown, with white breast and white tips to many of his feathers. His head feathers are long, and lie back on his neck, giving a peculiar shape to the head, by which you may know him at once. These feathers too are white, so that as he flies over he looks as if he were bald. He has feet marvelously fitted to hold slippery fish. The talons are sharp, and the toes long, and rough on the under side, so that nothing can get away from them.

The fish hawk is a social bird and fond of his home. Though he migrates, he comes back to the old place, year after year. He likes the top of a stout tree to build in. It needs to be stout, for he makes a very big nest, and adds to it every season. It generally kills the tree, if it is not dead when he begins. If there are no trees to be had, or if there are too many birds for the trees at hand, some of them will nest on the ground, for they like to keep near their friends. The nest is made of sticks and all the rubbish the birds can collect. Such things are found as an old broom, a boy's sail-boat, a rag doll, and others as absurd.

The young fish hawk is a pretty little fellow in white down. He is three or four weeks in the egg, and a long time in the nest, and is helpless a good deal longer. He is fed on fish like his parents. For this bird deserves his name; he is a fisherman, and always takes his food from the water. Fortunately he usually selects the poorer kinds of fish, which men do not care to eat, and so he is not called an enemy by the fishermen.

But the hard-working osprey has an enemy, who makes it his business to rob him. The way the fish hawk gets his food is to dive for it. He hovers over the water till he sees a fish near the surface that suits him. Then he closes his wings and dives like a shot. He plunges in often over his head, and seizes the fish in his claws or talons. Then he rises, and shaking off the water flies toward his family, with their dinner.

But then appears the robber, the bald eagle, I'm sorry to say, who prefers stealing his food to hunting for himself. He rushes furiously at the fish hawk, who is obliged to drop his load to defend himself. Then the eagle seizes it, often before it reaches the ground, and flies off, while the osprey goes back to his fishing.

But the osprey is learning something, like the rest of the birds. On the shore of New Jersey there is a place where men fish with great nets, and bring in hundreds of fish every day. The birds have noted how much better men are at their trade of fishing than they are. So they have thought out an easier way to get food than to dive for it. Perhaps they got the hint from the eagle.

Wherever the fish hawks got the idea, it is now the common custom for them to sit on the poles that hold the net and wait. When it is drawn up filled with flopping fish, each bird dives down and secures one for himself. And he takes time to choose, too. If there is one of a kind he particularly likes, he goes for that one.

Fish hawks, like other birds, are very fond of their little ones. A gentleman who had been traveling in the West told me this little story. He, with a party who were wandering over a wild part of the country, accidentally set fire to a bit of woods on the shore of Lake Superior. On one of the trees was a fish hawk's nest with young birds. As soon as the smoke began to spread, the old birds grew uneasy, and circled about their tree, going often to the nest.

The men who had done the mischief, and who had then taken to their boat, were noting the spread of the fire. They watched the birds to see what they would do. When the fire at last reached their tree, the loving parents turned with one accord, plunged down into the nest, and all perished together. They could easily have saved themselves, but they could not desert their nestlings.