346 



FALCONID^ 



PEKNIS 



The Honey Buzzards are found all over the Old World includmg 

 Madagascar, but not in Australia or its attendant islands. Out of 

 some five species described, one only visits Africa in winter. 



538. Pernis apivorus. Honey Buzzard. 



Falco apivorus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i, p. 130 (1766). 



Le Tachard, Levaillant, Ois. cVAfr. i, p. 82, pi. 19 (1799). 



Pernis apivorus, Gurneij, Ibis, 1859, p. 240, 1860, p. 204 [Natal]; 



Layard, B. S. Afr. p. 24 (1867) ; Sharije, Cat. B. M. i, p. 345 (1874) ; 



id. ed. Layard's B. S. Afr. p. 53 (1875) ; Dresser, B. Eur. vi, p. 3, 



pis. 364-6 (1875) ; Qurney, Ibis, 1880, pp. 195, 203 ; Shelley, B. Afr. 



i, p. 147 (1896); Marshall, Ibis, 1900, p. 270; Eeichenoiv, Vog. Afr. 



i, p. 613 (1901). 



Descri]jtion. — Not quite adult female (Eustenburg, Transvaal). 

 General colour above, sepia-brown, most of the feathers with paler 

 edges and darker shaft stripes. Head brown somewhat mottled 

 with white owing to the basal halves of the feathers being that 

 colour ; wing-quills dark brown ; upper tail-coverts lighter brown 



Fig. 119. — Pernis apivorus. x 



than the back ; tail brown crossed by three bars of darker, one 

 basal, one median, and one terminal ; between the two latter 

 indications of five or six other less distinct bars ; below, including 

 the under wing-coverts, brown with white mottlings ; wing-quills 

 and tail nearly white below, with a distinct median cross bar and 

 tip on the former. 



