The Habits of the Common Buzzard. 265 



sits on the eggs, the cock perches close by in some tall thick 

 tree. Perhaps from this very affection for their young arises 

 their seeming stupidity, and the ease with which they are killed. 

 Some years ago a keeper found a nest with two young birds in 

 Bentley Wood, and on purpose to secure them tied them by 

 their legs to a small tree, where the old birds regularly came 

 and fed them. But the strangest fact with regard to their 

 breeding is that before they finally decide upon a nest they will 

 line several Avith green leaves and small leafy twigs. Lastly, 

 I may add that though I have examined many nests, I have 

 never found any traces of their being, as is related by some 

 writers, lined with wool. If there was any wool it was probably 

 placed there by the bird which had previously inhabited the nest. 

 The common buzzard {Falco hiiteo) is a resident all through 

 the year in the Forest, and may now and then be seen towering 

 high up in the air, so high that you would not at first notice 

 him, unless you heard his wild scream. It is not, however, 

 nearly so plentiful as formerly. He is a sad coward, and the 

 common crow will not only attack, but defeat him. Once or 

 twice I have seen their battles during the breeding season. 

 The jays, and magpies, too, and even the pewits, will mob him, 

 the latter striking at him almost like a falcon. Its favourite 

 breeding-places are in the Denny and Bratley Woods, Sloden, 

 Birchen Hat, Mark Ash, and Prior's Acre. Several nests 

 are yearly taken, for the bird generally breeds when the bark- 

 strippers are at work in April and May. A series of its eggs, 

 in my collection, taken in the Forest, show every variety of 

 colouring from nearly pure white to richly blotched specimens. 



In the breeding- season the birds are excessively destruc- 

 tive. A boy who climbed up to a nest in the spring of 1860 

 told me that he found no less than two young rabbits, a o-rey 



M M 255 



