HONEY BUZZARD. 47 



Although it is beyond all question that the Honey Buzzard 

 feeds at times on small animals, reptiles, and small birds, yet 

 I feel convinced that insects are the food which is natural to 

 it, and which it therefore prefers. This is indeed conveyed by 

 its name, which happens in this instance, though circuitously, 

 as before remarked, to be more appropriate than trivial names 

 often are. Buffon says that it is itself good eating, but though 

 it mav be so in comparison with other birds more decidedly 

 carnivorous, yet the authority of the French author will probably 

 not have much weight with English tastes in the matter of 

 the 'cuisine.' The larvae of bees and wasps, found in the combs 

 of those insects, are a favourite food with the bird before us. 



The one described by Montagu, was skimming over a 

 large piece of water, in pursuit, it would seem, of the insects 

 to be met with in such situations, and another, at least a 

 bird which there is every reason to believe was of this species, 

 was observed by the Rev. Mr. Holds worth, skimming for 

 several successive days over a large piece of water, called 

 Slapton Ley, in the south of Devonshire, in pursuit of dragon 

 flies, which it seized with its talons, and then conveyed to 

 its beak: the one mentioned before, as described by Mr. 

 Liddell, was shot in the act of pursuing a wood pigeon. 

 Whatever it had fed on seemed to have agreed with it, for 

 that gentleman has described it as being so excessively fat, 

 that the oil ran from the holes made by the shot, and that 

 to such an extent, as to have rendered it extremely difficult 

 to preserve the skin clean for stuffing. Rabbits, young 

 pheasants, rats, frogs, and small birds, have been known to 

 form the food of those birds, and even fish, when in confinement. 



Its note is said to resemble that of the Golden Plover a 

 plaintive sound; and it has another indicative of alarm. 



The young, as recorded by White of Selborne, are hatched 

 at the end of June, so that the period of nidification must 

 be in the month of May, or the early part of June. A 

 female is recorded by J. P. Wilmot, Esq., in the 'Zoologist,' 

 page 437, as having been shot off the nest in Wellgrove 

 Wood, in the parish of Bix, near Henley-on-Thames, by a 

 gamekeeper of Lord Camoys. The male bird kept in the 

 neighbourhood of the nest, and was shortly afterwards shot 

 by another of the keepers. The nest itself was also taken 

 with two eggs, which it contained. The same gentleman also 

 relates that both the pairs mentioned before, as procured by 

 Lord Leigh's gamekeeper, were breeding at the time. The 



