_Pandion haliaëtus melvillensis_ Mathews, Australian Avium Rec., 1,
1912, p. 34. (Type locality, Melville Island.)
_Pandion leucocephalus_ Finsch, Journ. Mus. Godeffroy, 8, 1875, p.
49 (Palau).
_Pandion haliaetus leucocephalus_ Wiglesworth, Abhandl. und Ber.
Zool. Mus. Dresden, no. 6, 1890-1891 (1891), p. 1 (Pelew).
_Pandion haliaëtus cristatus_ Kuroda, in Momiyama, Birds
Micronesia, 1922, p. 40 (Pelew); Hand-list Japanese Birds, rev.,
1932, p. 182 (Pelew); Hand-list Japanese Birds, 3d ed., 1942, p.
203 (Palau).
_Pandion haliaëtus melvillensis_ Mayr, Birds Southwest Pacific,
1945, pp. 55, 286 (Palau); Baker, Smithson. Misc. Coll., vol. 107,
no. 15, 1948, p. 46 (Guam, Palau).
_Geographic range._--Malaysia, northern Australia, Melanesia. In
Micronesia: Mariana Islands--Guam; Palau Islands--Peleliu.
_Remarks._--The Osprey was first recorded at Palau by Finsch (1875:49).
The author (1948:46) cites records obtained by C. K. Dorsey at Peleliu
in 1944 and 1945. Dorsey saw the Osprey on several occasions; the NAMRU2
party did not find the bird while on their stay there in August and
September, 1945. B. V. Travis of NAMRU2 saw an Osprey at Agaña Bay,
Guam, in December, 1945. He observed the bird to be carrying a fish in
its talons. Flavin observed the Osprey at Guam on January 28, 1945, and
on December 23, 1945. Mayr (1945a:286) says that the Osprey apparently
breeds at Palau. The bird seen in the Marianas may have been _P. h.
haliaetus_ (Linnaeus), a visitor from Asia, which is known to winter in
the Philippines and adjacent areas.
The Osprey is the only resident member of the order Falconiformes, and
it is principally a fish eater. The few records of mammal and bird
eating hawks in Micronesia indicate that predation on insular vertebrate
populations from this source is at a minimum. The absence of this
predation may have a pronounced effect on the resident land birds,
particularly from the standpoint of the perpetuation of nonadaptive
mutations, which might be "weeded out" under what might be considered as
normal predatory pressure in continental bird populations.
=Falco peregrinus japonensis= Gmelin