540 Notes on the Honey Buzzard. 



liberty, betrayed the same inactive disposition as regards the 

 exercising of its volar powers which that account implies. 

 Still, however, when we consider the long and ample wings 

 with which this bird is furnished, it is impossible not to sus- 

 pect that our information respecting its habits is yet incom- 

 plete. Sir W. Jardine, indeed, states that «' there are some 

 partly insectivorous hawks (Pernis, for instance), which seize 

 and devour the insect during flight # ; but I am unaware that he 

 has any further authority for assuming this (1 mean, that the 

 pern is in the habit of pursuing insects on the wing), than the 

 following paragraph in Montagu's Siqiplement to his Ornitho- 

 logical Dictionary: — "A few years since, the Rev. Mr. Holds- 

 worth (a very intelligent observer of nature), who resides 

 contiguous to a large piece of fresh water, called Slapton Ley, 

 in South Devon, close to the sea, noticed a large species of 

 hawk skimming over the water, in pursuit of the larger dragon 

 flies, which it seized with its talons, and took them from 

 thence with its beak. This bird was observed to frequent the 

 lake daily for a long time, for the purpose of preying on these 

 insects ; and Mr. Holdsworth's account of the bird induces 

 us to believe that it was the honey buzzard." Mr. Macgillivray 

 conceives the pern to be related to the kites (Milvus) ; and I 

 fully agree with him in considering it as more distinct from 

 the buzzards than is generally held ; and, for this reason, would 

 drop the name honey buzzard, as he has done, substituting an 

 appellation which is at least as unobjectionable as tern. I 

 have been accustomed to regard the form as mediate, rather 

 between Buteo and E'lanus ; a view which haslately been con- 

 siderably strengthened by a remark of Nuttall on the E'lanus, 

 or rather Nauclerus, furcatus Vigors, to the effect that that spe- 

 cies also seizes on the nests of locusts and wasps, and devours 

 both the insects and their larvae. Should the latter view of 

 the affinities of this genus, then, prove to be the correct one, 

 the probability is much increased that it often feeds by chasing 

 the larger insects, as is a common habit with the E'lani: which 

 group, by the way, does not appear to me to be much allied 

 by direct affinity to the kites. We require more information 

 of the pern's habits, at other seasons than when wasps' nests 

 occur in abundance ; for to the larvae of these insects they 

 certainly appear to give the preference, over any other food; 

 and there can be little doubt that the unusual clothing of the 

 face, so characteristic of them, is ordained to furnish a pro- 

 tection from the envenomed stings of the insects alluded to, 

 which, consequently, would be thus indicated as their most 

 appropriate prey. These birds have the gape wide, and re- 



* Note to 4to edition of Wilson's American Ornithology, vol. ii. p. 275. 



