BEE-HAWK. 267 



so round as the common buzzard." But even a buz- 

 zard, unless very hungry, would hardly think it worth 

 while to pick carrion, and there is no want of whole- 

 some game. The passage alluded to in White's Na- 

 tural History of Selborne is this : — " A pair of honey 

 buzzards, Buteo apivorus, sive vespivorus, Raii, built 

 them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs, and lined 

 M^th dead beechen leaves, upon a tall slender beech, 

 near the middle of Selborne Hanger, in the summer of 

 1780. In the middle of the month of June, a bold boy 

 climbed this tree, though standing on so steep and 

 dizzy a situation, and brought down an egg, the only 

 one in the nest, which had been sat on for some time, 

 and contained the embryo of a young bird. The egg 

 Avas smaller, and not so round, as those of the common 

 buzzard, was dotted at each end with small red spots, 

 and surrounded in the middle with a broad bloody 

 zone." 



Willughby states that it forms its nest of twigs, and 

 lines it with wool. " We have seen one," he says, 

 " that made use of the deserted nest of a kite, and fed 

 its young with the larvae of wasps, for there were in 

 the nest wasps' combs, and fragments of the same were 

 found in the stomach of the young. There were two 

 young birds, clothed with white down, spotted with 

 black. Their feet were pale yellow, the bill between 

 the nostrils and the head white ; the stomach was large, 

 and contained lizards, frogs, &c. In the gullet of one 

 of them were found two entire lizards, whose heads ex- 

 tended up to the bill, as if they had been seeking to 

 escape." 



Temminck says " it nestles in woods, on tall trees 



