THE COMMON BUZZARD 155 



The eastern, midland, and southern counties 

 know it no longer as a nester, though until 

 fairly recent years the Buzzard was a regular 

 habitue of the New Forest, and still sometimes 

 breeds there. 



In the highlands of Scotland, however, mat- 

 ters are a little better, though even there, in some 

 districts, the bird is destroyed at sight, and Ireland 

 appears to have lost its stock of breeding Buzzards 

 for good and all. To Cambria, then, is reserved 

 the distinction of providing the bird with its 

 head-quarters in Britain. There it still deserves to 

 be called common. A census would show at least 

 two hundred and fifty pairs, and Anglesey 

 excepted, and possibly Flintshire it nests in every 

 county, though most abundantly in Brecon, 

 Radnor, Cardigan, Carmarthen, Merioneth, and 

 Carnarvon. Further, to indicate how numerous 

 the bird is, I need only add that in various parts 

 of the first four of those shires and especially in 

 Cardigan and Carmarthen I have periodically 

 visited over three score different eyries, some of 

 them for several years in succession, and, then 

 again, I know the whereabouts of quite another 

 fifty. Taking from every source then, there is 

 small doubt that throughout the British Isles the 

 Buzzard's strength may be safely gauged at some- 



* thing over four hundred and fifty pairs ; more- 

 over, in some Welsh districts the species is 

 increasing. Let me cite a good instance : on one 



