138 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



my approach, until I had advanced sufficiently 

 near to perceive that it was a honey buzzard in 

 the act of tearing up the soil above a wasp's nest, 

 which it had discovered in an angle formed by 

 two of the exposed horizontal roots of the tree; 

 when, desisting from its work, it ran rapidly for 

 ten or fifteen yards, and then rising with apparent 

 reluctance, sailed away on noiseless wing down 

 one of the open alleys of the forest, keeping near 

 the ground like the hen-harrier, until I lost sight 

 of it behind a little hill at the farther extremity of 

 a long vista. 



I should imagine this to have been an immature 

 bird, the state of the plumage, as far as I could 

 observe, corresponding with Mr. Jenyns's descrip- 

 tion of the young of the year, the head and upper 

 parts being variegated with white spots ; but 

 indeed such extraordinary variety of plumage 

 does the honey buzzard present, that I have 

 never yet seen two specimens which exactly re- 

 sembled each other, having no rival in this respect 

 among British birds, except that feathered harle- 

 quin of the fens, the ruff. 



The generic characters of the honey buzzard, 

 which appear to have been first appreciated by 

 Cuvier, are sufficiently obvious in a recently killed 

 or in a preserved specimen ; but even at the dis- 

 tance at which I observed this bird when on the 



