90 FALCONIM. 



THE BUZZARD is one of the most common of the larger 

 kind of Hawks which inhabit the wooded districts of this 

 country, preying upon small quadrupeds, birds, and even 

 reptiles. Bulky in appearance and rather slow in flight, 

 it remains for hours watching from the same tree, appear- 

 ing to prefer the accidental approach of an animal that 

 may serve for a meal rather than find it by a laborious 

 search, and is seldom observed to remain long together 

 upon the wing. Its courage, too, as compared with others 

 of the FalconidfSj has been questioned ; since it is known 

 to attack such animals as are either young or defenceless, 

 which it does not pursue and capture by its powers of 

 flight, but pounces at upon the ground. Though occa- 

 sionally seen soaring in the air in circles, it is much more 

 frequently stationed on a tree, from which if approached 

 it bustles out, as observed by the author of the Journal 

 of a Naturalist, with a confused and hurried flight, indi- 

 cative of fear. 



Mr. Macgillivray, in his descriptions of the Rapacious 

 Birds of Great Britain, gives the Buzzard a character for 

 greater activity in Scotland, as observed by himself; but 

 the nature of the country may be the cause of this differ- 

 ence in habit, and much greater exertion is perhaps abso- 

 lutely necessary to ensure a sufficient supply of food. In 

 Scotland the Buzzard " forms its nest on rocks, or on the 

 edges of steep scars or beds of torrents : " one nest described 

 by the writer last named "was placed on the top of a 

 steep bank or rut of a stream, and was composed of twigs, 

 heath, wool, and some other substances." In England the 

 Buzzard usually builds, or takes to, a nest in the forked 

 branches of a tree in a large wood : the materials with 

 which the nest is made, or repaired, are similar to those 

 that have been already named. 



The female lays two or three, and sometimes four eggs, 



