NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



HONEY- BUZZAKi) 



LETTER XLIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



A PAIR of honey-buzzards, Buteo opivorus, sive Vespivorus Rail, 

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

 dead beechen leaves, upon a tall slender beech near the middle of 

 Selborne Hanger, in the summer of 1780.* In the middle of the 



*The honey-buzzard is a rare bird in Great Britain, and extends chiefly along the east 

 coast to the south of Scotland, where we have known a few specimens to have been 

 killed ; its manner of breeding and habits during that time have not again been observed. 

 With the exception of what is stated above by Mr. White all the observations that have 

 been made upon their food have tended to show that it was almost entirely insectivorous. 



