32 BUZZARD. 



as I know that one Hawk will readily eat more than four 

 pounds weight of beef in a week what can they have lived 

 upon? there is next to no game in the forest or country 

 anywhere.' 



Whether the flights of the birds mentioned were adults 

 moving from one part of the country to another, or young 

 birds leaving their paternal home, in obedience to those laws 

 of population to which even lordly man is forced to submit, 

 it is difficult in the absence of ascertained facts, to hazard 

 even a conjecture. Temminck has observed that the species 

 before us migrates at certain periods of the year, and that it 

 is at such times frequently associated with the Rough-legged 

 Buzzard, which, if so, is rather curious. 



Their flight when thus migrating appears to be slowly per- 

 formed retarded by various evolutions in the air and many 

 of the birds often remain for days, and even weeks together 

 at some halting place or places on their way. 



In confinement the Buzzard is easily tamed, and becomes 

 in fact quite companionable. Various amusing anecdotes are 

 recorded of different individuals which have been thus kept. 

 It has generally been described as being of a slow and sluggish 

 nature, but it is so only comparatively, with reference to some 

 other species of birds of prey, and must not come under a 

 wide and unexceptionable censure. According to Bewick, whom 

 other writers seem to have followed in forming their estimate 

 of the character of the bird before us, it is so cowardly and 

 inactive that it will fly before a Sparrow Hawk, and when 

 overtaken, will snifer itself to be beaten, and even brought 

 to the ground, without resistance. I however incline much 

 rather to the opinion of Mr. Macgillivray, that the Buzzard 

 is by no means such a poltroon as he generally has had the 

 character of being. 



The Buzzard is described by some writers as flying low, 

 but such however is by no means the result of repeated ob- 

 servations which I have had opportunities of making upon it: 

 I have almost invariably seen it flying at a very considerable 

 elevation. Unquestionably it does, because it must, fly low, 

 not only sometimes, but often, but that it passes no small 

 portion of its time in lofty aerial flight, I most unhesitatingly 

 affirm. The slow sailing of this bird, as I have thus seen 

 it, is very striking the movement of its wings is hardly 

 perceptible, but onward it steadily wends its way: you can 

 scarcely take your eyes off it, but follow it with a gaze as 



