THE ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZARD EAGLE. 113 
In Nepal, Thibet, and possibly in China the present species is represented 
by A. strophiatus of Hodgson, which has the crown of the head, throat, 
and chest uniform brown; whilst on the North-American continent its 
place is taken by A. sancti johannis, differing in its more rufous and darker 
plumage. 
In this country, if any direct habitat can be assigned to a species that 
occurs but as a wanderer, the Rough-legged Buzzard Eagle appears to 
prefer open country—tracts of wild moorland and especially rabbit-warrens, 
and low-lying districts devoid of timber—marshy places abounding with 
wild fowl and the smaller mammals which compose its food. In its 
general habits it more closely resembles the smaller Eagles than the Buzzards. 
Although a sluggish-looking bird, it is by no means slow on the wing, is 
capable of much rapid graceful movement, and may sometimes be seen 
gliding along, eagle-like, with outspread wings and tail, surveying the 
ground below. Like the Eagles, too, the present species seems not to have 
that love for wooded districts and forests which is so marked a trait in the 
character of the Common Buzzard, but resorts to wilder districts amongst 
the mountains. In the breeding-season the Rough-legged Buzzard Eagle 
ofttimes betrays the site of its nest by its plaintive wailing cry, something 
hike the mewing of a cat, and which is much louder than the note of the 
Common Buzzard. 
A diurnal bird, its food is obtained in the daytime, sometimes just in 
the evening’s dusk, and its hunting-grounds are for the most part the 
open tracts of country. Here it leisurely sails, at a moderate height, 
ready to pounce down upon the usually small and insignificant creatures 
that form its food, which is composed of small mammals of various kinds, 
such as field-mice, lemmings, and moles, frogs, lizards, and also young 
rabbits and hares. When pressed by hunger it will often feed on 
carrion, like the Eagles; but it does not appear to prey much on birds, 
unless when it discovers them wounded and comparatively helpless. This 
bird has been known to follow the sportsman, and actually seize dead 
birds, an interesting note respecting this being found in Stevenson’s 
‘ Birds of Norfolk’ (i. p. 31). 
I have never taken the nest of the Rough-legged Buzzard Eagle; but 
my friend Harvie-Brown has lent me the journal of his visit to the Fille 
Fjeld in South Norway, in company with the late Mr. E. R. Alston. 
In the wild rocky valleys of this district, three to four thousand feet 
above the level of the sea, this interesting bird breeds in considerable 
numbers, and many nests were taken during the month of June. In 1871 
fourteen breeding-places were known in this locality, all of them in the 
clefts of more or less inaccessible rocks. In every case a rope was neces- 
sary to secure the eggs ; but the inhabitants pointed out many old breeding- 
places in easily accessible cliffs, leading to the suppesition that the 
VOL. I, I 
