COMMON BUZZARD. 77 



The Buzzard is one of tlie most common of the larger 

 kind of Hawks Avliicli inhabit the Avooded districts of this 

 country, preying upon small quadrupeds, birds, and even 

 reptiles. Bulky in appearance and rather slow in flight, 

 it remains for hours watching from the same tree, appearing 

 to prefer the accidental approach of an animal that may serve 

 for a meal rather than find it by a laborious search, and is 

 seldom observed to remain long together upon the wing. Its 

 courage too, as compared with others of the Falconid<z^ has 

 been questioned ; since it is known to attack such animals as 

 are either young or defenceless, which it does not pursue and 

 capture by its powers of flight, but pounces at upon the 

 ground. Though occasionally seen soaring in the air in 

 circles, it is much more frequently stationed on a tree, from 

 which if approached it bustles out, as observed by the author 

 of the Journal of a Naturalist, with a confused and hurried 

 flight, indicative of fear. 



Mr. Macgillivray, in his descriptions of the Rapacious 

 Birds of Great Britain, gives the Buzzard a character for 

 greater activity in Scotland, as observed by himself; but 

 the nature of the country may be the cause of this difference 

 in habit, and much greater exertion is perhaps absolutely 

 necessary to ensure a sufficient supply of food. In Scotland 

 the Buzzard " forms its nest on rocks, or on the edges of steep 

 scars or beds of torrents :" one nest described by the writer 

 last named " was placed on the top of a steep bank or rut 

 of a stream, and was composed of twigs, heath, wool, and 

 some other substances." In England the Buzzard usually 

 builds, or takes to, a nest in the forked branches of a tree 

 in a large wood : the materials with which the nest is made, 

 or repaired, are similar to those that have been already 

 named. 



The female lays two or three, and sometimes four eggs, 

 of a short oval form, two inches three lines in length by 



