142 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



consequent destruction. It used frequently to 

 breed in this county in the larger woods, but what 

 few specimens now occur seem to be occasional 

 stragglers in the autumn, and birds of the year." 



There is no doubt that this bird was formerly 

 very numerous among the great oak woods of the 

 weald of Sussex, and many of the aged inhabi- 

 tants of that district have told me that they 

 remember " the puttock " as well as the " forky- 

 tailed kite"* in the days of their youth, but that 

 the former was the more common species. The 

 surname of" Puttock," which here signified " buz- 

 zard," is of frequent occurrence among the fami- 

 lies of the labouring population in the western 

 portion of the weald, in the neighbourhood of 

 Kirdford and Billinghurst, where the characteris- 

 tic simplicity and many forms of expression de- 

 rived from their Saxon ancestors still prevail to a 

 great degree. 



In other parts of the county the ring-tail or 

 female hen-harrier is indiscriminately called a 

 buzzard or a kite, and the various stages of plu- 

 mage observable in the male of this bird and its 

 congeners, in their progress to maturity, appear 

 to have originated as many imaginary species. 



* In some counties the kite and the buzzard were indis- 

 criminately called puttocks. Vide Yarrell. 



