4 
32 BUZZARD. 
as | know that one Hawk will readily eat more than four 
pounds weight of beef in a week—what can they have lived 
upon? there is next to no game in the forest or country 
any where.’ 
Whether the flights of the birds mentioned were adults 
moving from one part of the country to another, or young 
birds leaving their paternal home, in obedience to those laws 
of population to which even lordly man is forced to submit, 
it is difficult in the absence of ascertained facts, to hazard 
even a conjecture. Temminck has observed that the species 
before us migrates at certain periods of the year, and that it 
is at such times frequently associated with the Rough-legged 
Buzzard, which, if so, is rather curious. 
Their flight when thus migrating appears to be slowly per- 
formed—retarded by various evolutions in the air—and many 
of the birds often remain for days, and even weeks together 
at some halting place or places on their way. 
In confinement the Buzzard is easily tamed, and becomes 
in fact quite companionable. Various amusing anecdotes are 
recorded of different individuals which have been thus kept. 
It has generally been described as being of a slow and sluggish 
nature, but it is so only comparatively, with reference to some 
other species of birds of prey, and must not come under a 
wide and unexceptionable censure. According to Bewick, whom 
other writers seem to have followed in forming their estimate 
of the character of the bird before us, it 1s so cowardly and 
inactive that it will fly before a Sparrow Hawk, and when 
overtaken, will suffer itself to be beaten, and even brought 
to the ground, without resistance. I however incline much 
rather to the opinion of Mr. Maegillivray, that the Buzzard 
is by no means such a poltroon as he generally has had the 
character of being. 
The Buzzard is described by some writers as flying low, 
but such however is by no means the result of repeated ob- 
servations which I have had opportunities of making upon it: 
I have almost invariably seen it flying at a very considerable 
elevation. Unquestionably it does, because it must, fly low, 
not only sometimes, but often, but that it passes no small 
portion of its time in lofty aerial flight, I must unhesitatingly 
affirm. The slow sailing of this bird, as I have thus s:en 
it, is very striking—the movement of its wings is hardiy 
perceptible, but onward it steadily wends its way: you can 
scarcely take your eyes off it, but follow it with a gaze as 
