156 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



carefully protected estate of not very many square 

 miles in extent there were in 1901 five tenanted 

 eyries, in 1902 six, while in 1903 there existed 

 eight. This looks as if Buzzards breed the first 

 spring after being hatched. 



So numerous is the species in certain parts of 

 Wales that during walking tours of three or four 

 days only I have seen upwards of fifty ; this, too, 

 in early spring : while if the best country be 

 traversed, it is nothing unusual to meet with 

 twenty or more in the course of a single day. This 

 great plenty is due in no small measure to the 

 fact that many pairs resort to the miles of barren 

 solitudes in those rugged hill-regions, which are 

 given over to sheep, and sheep alone, with no 

 game-preserving in force, and hence none of the 

 accompanying butchery of so-called vermin. 

 There a man of leisure may wander for days 

 during summer in unalloyed contentment, never 

 to chance on a soul, perhaps, save for the ubiqui- 

 tous shepherd and his foxy-looking, white-eyed 

 collies. 



Any moment, as you top some rise of the 

 undulating moorland, a huge hawk with rather 

 owlish, not to say lumbering, flight, may flap 

 with unseemly haste from the decaying carcase of 

 a sheep. That hawk is a Buzzard, and, even if 

 you are no ornithologist, you will surely stay your 

 steps and gaze. As this bird climbs the air, 

 another almost certainly its mate may join it 



