HONEY BUZZARD. 209 



Esq. to whom we are indebted for a notice of it. 

 In other parts of England it seems also very rare, 

 in the north of Scotland it has not occurred at 

 all, and its range in Britain may be limited to the 

 south of the Forth. A single specimen only is 

 recorded to have been killed in Ireland in the 

 vicinity of Belfast.* On the Continent, it occurs 

 frequently in France and towards the south, but. 

 we do not trace it out of Europe, on the con- 

 fines of Asia. Its flight is light and buoyant, 

 and it is said to frequent watery places in search 

 of the Libelhdidce, but some original descrip- 

 tion of its habits is yet a much wanted deside- 

 ratum. Most authors record its preying on birds, 

 small animals, reptiles, &c. During the greater 

 part of the year we should doubt if much food 

 of this kind was looked after, and we would 

 rather conclude that it was only during the dead 

 of winter that the want of the Hymenoptera and 

 the nests of Bees and Wasps would drive it to 

 seek a stronger and less easily captured prey. As 

 an important addition to its habits, we transcribe 

 entire an account given by Mr Selby of the 

 destruction of a wasp's nest near Twizell by this 

 bird, which was read before the Berwickshire 

 Naturalist's Club, in 1836 : 



< This individual was caught in a steel spring- 



' See Mag. of Nat. Hist. vi. p. 447. 

 



