HONEY BUZZARD. 47I 



also in the Museum of the University of Edinburgh a 

 Pernis which seems different from the common. In 

 this bird the second quill is longest, although the third 

 is almost equal, and the first is intermediate between 

 the fifth and sixth. In all other respects, the generic 

 character as given by me is correct, with reference to 

 these three species. The prominent distinctive charac- 

 ters of the genus are the compact feathers of the fore 

 part of the face, the very long wings and tail, the short 

 scaly tarsi, and the bill, which is intermediate between 

 those of Buteo and Milvus. 



At page 263, the honey buzzard is stated not to have 

 been, in so far as I was aware, observed in Scotland ; 

 but the specimen from which I took my description, 

 Mr Bushnan, its owner, informs me was killed in Dum- 

 friesshire, and the Rev. Mr Patrick, in his Statistical 

 Report of the Parish of Hamilton, commences his ac- 

 count of the birds of that district as follows : " The 

 four species which follow have not hitherto obtained a 

 place in the Scottish Fauna. 1. Pernis apivorus. Ho- 

 ney Buzzard, shot at Chatelherault in the autumn of 

 1831. 2. Saxicola rubicola, Stone-chat," &c. The 

 stone-chat is not very uncommon about Edinburgh, as 

 every bird-stuffer there knows ; I have shot it on Mus- 

 selburgh Links, received several specimens from the 

 Pentland Hills last summer, and long ago described it 

 as " not very uncommon in summer on the sides of the 

 hills" in the outer Hebrides. It is therefore not at all 

 new to the Fauna of Scotland. But to return to the 

 Honey Buzzard. My esteemed friend Mr G. H. Green- 

 how of Tynemouth, in a letter dated 27th October 1835, 

 mentions that two individuals had been shot in the 

 county of Durham in September. In October, Mr 



