COMMON BUZZARD. 141 



"The common buzzard (Buteo vulgaris] is in 

 these days anything but a common bird. Old 

 books of Natural History speak of it as the most 

 common of hawks. It is so no longer, its size 

 and sluggish habits expose it to observation, and 

 consequent destruction. It used frequently to 

 breed in this county in the larger woods, but 

 what few specimens now occur seem to be occa- 

 sional stragglers in the autumn, and birds of the 

 year." 



There is no doubt that this bird was formerly 

 very numerous among the great oak woods of the 

 weald of Sussex, and many of the aged inhabi- 

 tants of that district have told me that they 

 remember "the puttock" as well as the "forky- 

 tailed kite"* in the days of their youth, but that 

 the former was the more common species. The 

 surname of "Puttock," which here signified "buz- 

 zard," is of frequent occurrence among the fami- 

 lies of the labouring population in the western 

 portion of the weald, in the neighbourhood of 

 Kirdford and Billinghurst, where the characteris- 

 tic simplicity and many forms of expression 

 derived from their Saxon ancestors still prepon- 

 derate to a great degree. 



* In some counties the kite and the buzzard were indis- 

 criminately called puttocks. Vide Yarrell. 



