122 BRITISH BIRDS. 
and usually very low, just above the ground. Sometimes it may be seen 
sitting on the road-side, on a large stone or fence, from which it flaps 
slowly forward to secure, with unerring certainty, some mouse or other 
small mammal. At times the Buzzard flies at a great height, sailing 
slowly about the heavens in graceful swoops and curves, its broad wings 
and tail expanded to their fullest extent, the motion of the tail helping to 
guide the bird through space. 
In the typical form of the Common Buzzard the tail is crossed with 
about ten pale bars, and has a slight pale tip; legs and toes yellow ; claws 
black ; beak bluish black ; cere yellow; irides yellowish brown, dark hazel 
in the young. 
Three other species belonging to the genus Buteo have been recorded as 
occurring in the British Islands. The Red-tailed Buzzard (Buteo borealis), 
a species inhabiting Eastern North America and the West Indies, is said 
to have been killed, in the autumn of 1860, in Nottinghamshire. Another 
American species, the Red-shouldered Buzzard (Buteo lineatus) , is reported 
to have been killed in Invernessshire in 1863, and is recorded in ‘ The Ibis’ 
for 1865 (p. 549). Lastly, the African Buzzard (Buteo desertorum), of 
which three examples are said to have been obtained: the first was killed 
at Everley, Wiltshire, in September 1864; the.other two specimens were 
obtained in Northumberland— one near Newcastle in 1830, the other 
at Tynemouth in November 1870. There is no evidence to prove that 
these birds had not escaped from confinement; nor is it certain that the 
identification was correct. 
