HONEY BUZZARD. 



BOD T MEL, OF THE AXCIEXT BHITISH. 



Pernis apivonis, CUVIKR. 



Buteo apivorus, JF.NYNS. 



Falco apivorus, PENNANT. 



Pernis A kind of Hawk. (Aristotle.) ApiKorus. Apis- 



A Bee. Voro To devour. 



TUTS species is widely distributed over the earth, being 

 found in India, and in various countries of Europe rarely 

 in Holland, unfrequently in France, and also in Turkey, 

 Hungary, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, liussia. 

 the Levant, and other parts. In Asia also, in Siberia. If 

 the speciiic English name is to be considered as in any way 

 descriptive of the bird it is attached to, it has been well 

 observed bv Mr. Macgillivray that the term 'Honey Buzzard' 

 should be set aside for 'Bee Hawk/ as the bird does not feed 

 on the honey, the produce of the bee, but on the bee, the 

 producer of the honey ; except therefore by a sort of recondite 

 implication, its present name must be considered as a misnomer. 

 There is indeed one instance to the contrary recorded by Mr. 

 J. T. Bold, who says that an individual of tjiis species, kept 

 in confinement by Mr. John Hancock, 'not only ate honey, 

 but did so with great apparent relish, preferring it to other 

 food.' May it not however, possibly, have been thought to 

 be eating the honey-comb, when it was in fact only picking 

 it to pieces, or swallowing it accidentally in search of the 

 food which its instinct led it to expect to find in it? 



One kept in a tame state by Mr. Gordon Joseph Fisher, 

 of Newton-on-the-sea, lived in perfect amity with three Lap- 

 wings, a Seagull, and a Curlew. The one described by him 

 had a quantity of moss in its stomach, which, as he very 

 justly remarks, it had doubtless swallowed with the bees 



