152 HONEY-BUZZARD. 



surprised to find that not one of them took to flight. On 

 going up, he found, that owing to the severity of the frost, 

 they were not only completely fastened to the ice by their 

 feet, but that nearly one-half were frozen to death. The 

 above anecdotes will appear less improbable, when we 

 consider how rapidly, under favourable circumstances, 

 even in our comparatively temperate winters, ice is 

 formed, and how unexpectedly birds or animals unaware 

 of it, might in consequence be imprisoned. It is easy 

 to form ice to a considerable extent, in a few minutes, 

 if water is poured over a level surface so that none shall 

 escape ; for instance, over a wide floor or plain, smoothed 

 with Roman cement, flooded to the depth of less than 

 a quarter of an inch. A thin coating of water thus 

 applied, will, even if the thermometer is scarcely lower 

 than the freezing-point, almost immediately become 

 a sheet of ice, and if repeated two or three times, will 

 form a covering, capable of bearing the heaviest weight 

 without giving way. This was actually practised with 

 success on three successive days in November, near 

 Glasgow, for the purpose of preparing a perfectly 

 smooth sheet of water on a roughly frozen pond, for a 

 game, called, in Scotland, a curling match. One-eighth 

 of an inch in thickness was found sufficient ; it imme- 

 diately froze, and when the game was over at night, a 

 similar additional coating was poured over it, for fresh use. 

 We have seen that the common food of the Hawk 

 tribe consists of animals, or birds, dead or living, with 

 the exception of the Kestrel, which preys with equal 

 satisfaction on beetles ; but there is one particular Hawk, 

 called the Honey-buzzard (Falco apivorus), rather rare 

 at present in England, whose favourite food is bees and 

 wasps, (and not the honey of the former, as has been 

 erroneously supposed from its name), which it devours 

 greedily, apparently without ever suffering from their 

 stings. There can be no longer any doubt as to the 

 truth, one having been lately shot in the parish of Stoke 

 iNayland, in Suffolk, by a person who saw it first on the 



