Mr. R. B. S/iarjjc's Catalogue o/ Aocipitres. 373 



list of the specimens of that Buzzard in the British Museum 

 includes two immature examples obtained in Natal by the 

 late Sir A. Smithy which afford evidence of the extensive and 

 irregular wanderings of the young birds of this species, and 

 perhaps also make it probable that Le Vaillant was accurate 

 in stating that he had obtained this Buzzard during his travels 

 in South Africa, although it is, on the other hand, quite pos- 

 sible that the bird he obtained there was Nisaetus pennatus, 

 and that afterwards, writing from memory, he confused the 

 Booted Eagle with the Rough-legged Buzzard. 



Be this as it may, the specimens obtained by Sir A. Smith 

 (presuming that no error has occurred respecting their lo- 

 cality) form an exception to the statement in Mr. Dresser's 

 article on this species, in his ' Birds of Europe,' that " it has 

 never been met with south of the Mediterranean.'' I may 

 add that in the Catalogue of the birds in the British Museum, 

 published in 1848, only one of these Natal specimens is men- 

 tioned, which probably arose from the other specimen not 

 having been mounted. 



The Norwich Museum contains two newly fledged nestlings 

 of this species, Avhich are remarkable for the conspicuous 

 rufous margins of their feathers. In one of these this pecu- 

 liarity strongly pervades both the upper and under portions 

 of the plumage ; in the other it is less conspicuous, and is 

 limited to the upper parts only. Such rufous margins, in great 

 measure, disappear from the plumage of the young bird in 

 the course of the first autumn^ but are frequently more or 

 less reassumed at subsequent moults. 



The change from the immature to the fully adult dress is 

 probably not completed till the third year ; and the specimen 

 described by Mr. Sharpe as an " adult female " does not 

 appear to me to have attained its full adult plumage, which is 

 well described at page 119 of vol. i. of Professor Newton's 

 edition of Yarrell's ' British Birds,' and also in Mr. Dresser's 

 article to which I have already referred : this adult stage is 

 especially characterized by the dark transverse bands on a 

 white ground which appear to be always more or less con- 

 spicuous on the upper surface of the tail in fully adult 



