76 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



wing, its flight remarkably resembles that of the eagle, and the 

 writer does not mind frankly admitting that, when they are high 

 up, he cannot tell the one from the other. This bird has, when 

 domesticated, a curious predilection for hatching and rearing the 

 young of other birds. There is a well-known instance on recc.d 

 of a female Buzzard who hatched and brought up a brood of 

 chickens for several consecutive years. 



The Honey Buzzard is placed, on good grounds, by modern 

 systematists between the Kites and Falcons. To the Kites we 

 are coming now. There is no need, however, to refer to any but 

 the " common " Red Kite the other species having occurred so 

 very seldom in Great Britain. At the present time the Red Kite 

 is one of our very rarest birds. There are one or two retreats in 

 which it still abides, protected by wise sympathies. And yet, in 

 the early part of this century, the Red Kite nested in many parts 

 of England, Scotland, and Wales. And, just as this bird is to be 

 seen to-day hanging about Eastern towns, so it used to be with 

 London. It was protected to such an extent that " the Bohemian 

 Schaschek, who visited England about 1461, after mentioning 

 London Bridge in his journal, remarks that he had nowhere seen 

 so great a number of Kites as there, and the statement is confirmed 

 by Beton, who says that they were scarcely more numerous in 

 Cairo than in London, where they remained all the year feeding on 

 the garbage of the streets, and even of the Thames itself." 



More familiar, perhaps, than the Buzzards are the Harriers. 

 The male Hen-Harrier is know r n in many parts under the popular 

 name of " the Dove-hawk." This name has probably been given 

 to it on account of its plumage, for the difference between the 



