ACCIPITRES. ( 315 ) FALCONIDAi. 



THE HONEY BUZZARD. 



BROWN BEE-HAWK, CAPPED BUZZARD. 



Pernis apivorus. 



Some haggard Hawk who had her eyry nigh. 

 Well pounced to fasten, and well wing'd to fly , 

 One they might trust their comtnon wrongs to wreak. 

 The Musquet and the Coystrel were too weak ; 

 Too fierce the Falcon ; but above the rest, 

 The noble Buzzard ever pleased me best ; 

 Of small renow?i 'tis true, for, not to lie, 

 We call him but a Hawk by courtesy. 



Dryden, Hind and Panther. 



The Honey Buzzard is a rare visitor to Berwickshire. 

 Mr. Eobert Gray mentions that three or four specimens 

 were shot in this county in June 1845, where the species 

 again reappeared in one or two instances in 1863-64 \^ and, 

 according to Mr. Andrew Brotherston, one was obtained at 

 Newton Don on the 22nd of May 1865.- Mr. Hardy writes 

 that — " A very fine example was killed on the 29 th of May 

 1876, in Penmanshiel Wood, by a gamekeeper on Dunglass 

 estate. His attention was called to it by the persecution 

 which it met with from the carrion crows, of which about 

 twenty were attacking it while it was perched on the top of 

 a tree, whence it sallied forth on its sable tormentors, which 

 then fled with wild outcries. It flew sluggishly, like an owl. 

 I examined it shortly after it was shot, and it is now pre- 



1 Birds of the West of Scotland, p. 49. 



2 Hist. Ber. Nat. Club, vol. vii, p. 135. 



