190 BUTEO VULGARIS. 



is accused of killing game, and sufters accordingly ; but the 

 gleanings of the fields are not left to maintain game alone, be- 

 ing shared by mice and small birds, and yet the poor Buzzard 

 is shot when endeavouring to fulfil one of the great ends for 

 which he was created, namely, setting bounds to their increase. 

 When will our senators see the errors of game-laws, and the 

 moral evils they inflict on the lower orders ? Not till then 

 will the farmer and nurseryman experience the full benefit of 

 our rapacious birds." 



This species, which is permanently resident, is still pretty 

 numerous in many of our wilder districts. In Edinburgh, 

 next to the Sparrow Hawk, Kestrel, and Merlin, it is that 

 most frequently sent to the bird-stufters. It is more plentiful 

 in the interior than along the coast, and although it occurs in 

 the larger Hebrides, it is rarely seen there, and in the Shet- 

 land Isles, as Dr Edmondston informs me, ranks merely as a 

 straggler. 



Young. — I have not examined a young bird taken from the 

 nest, nor one that could with certainty be said to be in its first 

 plumage, and have failed in my endeavours to obtain an account 

 of one in this state, as no person of my acquaintance has paid 

 attention to the subject. A male shot in October, having its 

 plumage complete, and known to be a young bird by the soft- 

 ness and vascularity of its bones, was as follows. 



The cere and soft margins of the bill greenish-yellow, the 

 iris hazel, the tarsi and toes yellow with a tinge of green, the 

 bill and claws black. The upper part of the head and the 

 hind-neck are dark-brown, longitudinally streaked with yel- 

 lowish-white, the lateral margins of the feathers being of that 

 colour. The rest of the upper parts deep brown glossed with 

 purple, all the feathers laterally margined with light-red ; the 

 scapulars and some of the large wing-coverts with several bands 

 of white on their inner webs, of which the edge is mottled with 

 reddish. The hind part of the back is of a uniform dark brown ; 

 but the upper tail-coverts are barred with light red. The pri- 

 mary quills are brownish-black, with the outer webs tinged 

 with grey toward the end, the inner white from the base to be- 



