( 535 ) 



hard-set oues on May 28. These eagles are very bcjlJ and very swift flyers. They 

 prey on small mammals, such as raV)bits, smaller rodents, and birds. A winged 

 bird runs at an enormous speed, unlike a Golden Eagle; and thus we lost two 

 in the densely wooded ravines, full of the very thorniest brambles and Smilax. 

 Iris brownish orange, feet dull yellow, claws black. The eggs measure 53'5 x 43 

 and 53-7 x ViG; 55'7 x 44-5 and 55 x 45 mm. One is well marked with pale 

 rufous, the other three white without distinct markings. 



157. Buteo ferox cirtensis (Lev.) 



Buzzards have always been a difficult group to study. It has been the 

 custom to distinguish, besides the European Buteo buteo, the eastern Buteo 

 (lesertoriim and the larger eastern Buteo ferox. Few writers have gone further 

 in subilividiiig these forms, and Buteo cirtensis Inis universally been treated as 

 9, nynonym o1 desertornm. In 1S98 Erlanger, liowever, treated "Buteo cirtensis" 

 as a separate species, but without e.xplaining why. It is .also interesting that 

 Sharpe, as long ago as 1874, made a remark that " North African Buteo 

 c/esertorum" sometimes had a striking resemblance to B. ferox. In 1904 Oscar 

 Neumann for the first time put cirtensis in its right place, correctly treating it 

 as a subspecies of fero.r, while desertorum. was regarded as an eastern form of 

 Buteo buteo, as had been done before by Hartert and others. Neumann, however, 

 did not attempt to say how these two species (i.e. ferox and huteo) differed from 

 each other, and therefore nobody could understand his -reasons, unless he knew 

 these birds well and had a series of each before him to compare. Count Zedlitz in 

 1909 and 1910 emphatically declares that he fully agrees with Neumann's and 

 Erlanger's views, but he too avoids stating the differences of the two species. 

 Now, this is not such an easy task as one might think. It is very much as in 

 some Cuckoos : there is, as Swinhoe wrote in 1803, " a difficulty of pointing out 

 sufficiently recognisable characters to enable others to distinguish the particular 

 species whicli the discoverer wishes to describe from its numerous closely allied 

 congeners," although one knows perfectly well that they are different. Judging 

 from our seiies we come to the conclusion that the /cror-group is distinguishable 

 by its stronger build, the beak and feet being more powerful, the tail is entirely 

 barred in quite young birds only, and adult birds have quite unbarred tails, while 

 the buteo-gxo\x\) has weaker bills and feet, and the tail never loses its bars 

 entirely. Even in the least barred ones of the buteo-gtow'^ before us there remain 

 five or si.x distinct and well-defined bars on the outer webs of the lateral rectrices, 

 and a black subterminal bar with traces of others on the central pair of rectrices. 

 The statement repeated in many books that old desertorum have au entirely 

 unbarred tail is probably only due to the fact that B. ferox cirtensis has always 

 been mixed up with desertorum. Of course the latter is only an eastern repre- 

 sentative of buteo, while cirtensis is merely a much smaller race of ferox. It is 

 clear that buteo and ferox are species and not representatives, as they inhabit the 

 same areas in the eastern countries. 



Buteo ferox cirbnsis is not rare in the southern portions of Algeria, bnt 

 less numerous in the north. In the forests of the Northern Atlas it does not 

 seem to breed, but nests on the rocks near El Kantara, Biskra, and Laghouat, and 

 Professor Koenig found it as far south as ^Va^gla. 



On April 20 a nest, previously marked a month earlier, was found containing 

 two e.xceptioually well marked eggs, measuring 57'6 x 44-9 and 54'4 x 45 mm. 



