100 FALCONUm 



been scraped showed that a much greater power could be 

 employed, and that the bird possessed organs much better 

 fitted to remove the obstacles which generally concealed its 

 prey, than a superficial examination of the feet and legs 

 would warrant us in ascribing to it. A few hours after- 

 wards, the task was found to be entirely completed, 

 the comb torn out and cleared from the immature young ; 

 and after dissection proved that at this season (autumn), 

 at least, birds or mammalia formed no part of the food. 

 A steel trap, baited with the comb, secured the aggressor 

 in the course of the next day, when he had returned to 

 review the scene of his previous havoc." 



The stomach of a specimen killed in the north of 

 Ireland, and examined by Mr. Thompson of Belfast, " con- 

 tained a few of the larvae and some fragments of perfect 

 coleopterous insects ; several whitish-coloured hairy cater- 

 pillars ; the pupae of a species of butterfly, and also of the 

 six-spot burnet-moth. 3 ' The stomach of one examined by 

 White of Selborne contained some limbs of frogs, and 

 many grey snails without shells. 



Examinations have usually proved the food to have been 

 the larvae of bees and wasps, to obtain which the recep- 

 tacles containing them are scratched out and broken up in 

 the manner described by Sir William Jardine. In one 

 instance, in the case of a Honey Buzzard kept in confine- 

 ment, I was told that it killed and ate rats, as well as 

 birds of considerable size, with great ease and good appetite. 

 BufFon says, that in winter, when fat, the Honey Buzzard 

 is good eating. 



This species builds or takes to a nest on a high tree in 

 a wood or forest. White, in his Natural History of Sel- 

 borne, says, that "a pair of Honey Buzzards built them 

 a large shallow nest, composed of twigs, and lined with 

 dead beechen leaves, upon a tall slender beech near the 



