LETTER XLIII. 



To the same. 



PAIR of honey-buzzards, Buteo apivorus, 

 Linn., sive vespivorus Raii, 1 built them a 

 large shallow nest, composed of twigs and 

 lined with dead beechen leaves, upon a tall 

 slender beech near the middle of Selborne 

 Hanger, in the summer of 1780. In the 

 middle of the month of June a bold boy 

 climbed this tree, though standing on so steep and dizzy a 

 situation, and brought down an egg, the only one in the 

 nest, which had been sat on for some time, and contained the 



1 The honey-buzzard is a very rare British bird. White is almost the 

 only authority for any but an insect diet on its part. Most of the species 

 undoubtedly live on the grubs and pupae of wasps and bees. ED. 



