CH. IV.] ANECDOTE OF BUZZARDS. 193 



been the bird seen in company with the other, 

 to which it might, being disabled from catering 

 for itself, have been indebted for its means of 

 sustenance. If such had been the case, it would 

 probably in about that time after the death of 

 its companion have pined away and died from 

 want. It was very poor, though perhaps not quite 

 such a skeleton as might have been expected if 

 its death had resulted simply from starvation. 



There used to be a good many Buzzards in 

 that part of the country until within the last 

 forty or fifty years. An old gamekeeper on the 

 property where the two last mentioned were found, 

 on whose word I could most thoroughly depend, 

 has told me that a pair used to build every year 

 in a particular tree in a covert three or four miles 

 from the farm last mentioned, and that, as re- 

 gularly, he used to destroy at least one, if not 

 both of the old birds. He assured me, however, 

 that the fact of his having killed both the old birds 

 made not the slightest difference, and that the 

 following year another pair invariably built or 

 reconstructed their nest in the same tree. This, 

 he told me, went on for a good many years, until 

 the tree in which the birds had been accustomed to 

 build was cut down, when, with it, the attraction 



o 



