118 BRITISH BIRDS. 
winter is probably accidental. There are two extreme forms of the Euro- 
pean Buzzard. One is deep blackish brown, with pale edges to a few of 
the feathers of the underparts. The other is pale brown on the upper 
parts, with white edges to each feather; whilst on the underparts the 
white edges have spread over the entire feather, except on a few feathers on 
the breast and flanks, where a little pale brown is left in the centre. 
Between these two extremes every intermediate form occurs. 
East of the Ural Mountains lie the Barabinsky Steppes, where there is 
no forest, and consequently no Buzzards. But beyond the steppes the 
forest reappears, and with it the Buzzards. In the upper valley of the 
Yenesay, in the trans-Baikal country as far as the Stanowoi Mountains on 
the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, and m Japan the Japanese Buzzard 
(B. japonicus) is found in summer, wintering m China, Burma, and India. 
This is a very near ally of our bird, said to differ from it in having the 
tarsus feathered for a slightly greater extent, and in varying from dark 
brown to rufous in general colour; but the former character is by no 
means constant, though it has suggested the name (B. plumipes) for the 
Indian bird, which some writers have considered distinct. 
Besides the two northerly forms of the Common Buzzard, there are two 
tropical forms. The African Buzzard (B. desertorum) is, on an average, 
slightly smaller than its European representative, the length of wing 
varying from 13} to 15} inches, whilst m our race it varies from 15 to 
1614 inches. As might be expected in a tropical race, it is very rufous in 
colour ; but it is subject to the same variations as our bird, and a small 
dark bird of our race is scarcely to be distinguished from a large dark bird 
of the African race. The range of the latter extends to the Azores, where it 
is a resident—to Tangiers, Algeria, and Tunis, where it is also found 
throughout the year—and to the plains of Northern Turkey and South 
Russia as far east as the Kirghis Steppes, where it is a common summer 
visitor, passing the Bosphorus in great numbers on migration and 
wintering in South Africa. The other tropical form is the Long-legged 
Buzzard (B. ferox), with the same variations from dark brown to rufous- 
brown which are found in its tropical ally; it is a larger bird, the wing 
varying from 16} to 194 inches in length. In Algeria and the Kirghis 
Steppes its range overlaps that of the African Buzzard; but it extends 
eastward through Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, Persia, and Turkestan to 
India. Both the rufous forms are remarkable for the way in which the 
bars on the tail become nearly obsolete in adult birds. All these forms 
are probably conspecific to a greater or less extent. 
It is very unfortunate for the Common Buzzard that it looks so much 
like an Eagle. The consequence is that in England, where the preserva- 
tion of game is conducted irrationally, the innocent Buzzard has almost 
become exterminated by the gamekeepers. In order to study its habits 
