HONEY-BUZZARD. 329 



Honey-Buzzard. Ferfiis apivoms (Linn.). 



The Honey-Buzzard (Plate 142) is a summer visitor to 

 northern and central Europe and western Siberia ; it winters 

 in Africa. It is now mainly known in our islands as a rare 

 spring and autumn visitor on passage, but has perfect right to 

 rank as a scarce summer visitor, since within recent years it 

 has nested in many parts of England and southern Scotland. 

 At one time it was, undoubtedly, a regular breeder, and until 

 about 1870 nested annually in the New Forest. 



The Honey-Buzzard is a bird of the woods, seldom appa- 

 rently indulging in the long flights and aerial performances of 

 its congeners, though Gilbert White, who knew it well, says it 

 "skims about in a majestic manner." Lilford, who made its 

 acquaintance abroad, found that it delights to sit, sunning 

 itself, and when seeking food walks and runs on the ground 

 with ease. As its favourite food is the larvae of wasps, it 

 certainly is not honey that it seeks, and though it attacks nests 

 of wild bees it is the grubs it devours. It has no fear of wasps 

 and will scratch out the " cakes," entering so far into the 

 hollow as to be almost hidden, for, as Lilford relates, a wood- 

 man in Salcey Forest actually pulled one out of a wasps' nest 

 when he saw its tail protruding. Wise, in his " New Forest," 

 says, " I have frequently watched a couple, sailing with their 

 wings outspread — ^just circling round the tops of the beeches, 

 sometimes even ' tumbling ' like a pigeon, and answering each 

 other with their sharp short cry, prolonged every now and then 

 into a melancholy wail." Most authorities say that it is a 

 rather silent bird. In spite of many assertions that it only 

 feeds on insects, it undoubtedly kills small birds and m.ammals, 

 and robs nests of eggs ; Mr. F. Nicholson saw one shot when 

 in the act of robbing the nest of a Thrush. A Cheshire 

 bird, which had its stomach "crammed with wasp grubs,"' was 



