120 Order IV 



pairs nest in the fens, gorse-covers, or heath-lands of 

 England and Wales, chiefly in the southern and eastern 

 counties. Abroad it ranges further south in Europe 

 than its congener and breeds in north Africa, but it 

 is not found so far east in Asia. The nest is generally 

 more flimsy, and the four or five eggs can always be 

 recognised by their smaller size. 



The Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) used to be really 

 common in many parts of Britain, and even now is 

 constantly to be met with on the west from Cornwall to 

 Sutherland, though rarely in Ireland. Its foreign dis - 

 tribution is from Scandinavia and the Baltic provinces 

 of Russia to south Europe ; eastwards and southwards 

 it is represented by the closely allied African and 

 other Buzzards. Our species exhibits many dark or 

 light phases, but the typical bird is in both sexes brown 

 with some light colour on the breast and a barred tail, 

 while the young are particoloured below. The flight is 

 heavy but strong, and both parents may be seen to 

 advantage when circling round their breeding haunts 

 and uttering their cat-like mew; they are not shy at 

 the nest, which is built in a tree or recess in a cliff, and 

 seems invariably to have a lining of fresh green leaves 

 on the top of the mass of sticks. The three or four 

 thick shelled coarse-grained eggs have a greenish white 

 ground-colour, and either a few brown markings or 

 fine red-brown and lilac blotches ; they vary, however, 

 extremely. This is a most useful bird to the farmer 

 or gamekeeper, for it feeds almost entirely on rats, 

 mice, frogs, reptiles, and large insects, and very rarely 

 molests a bird. 



The Rough -legged Buzzard (B. lagopus) is normally 

 a lighter coloured bird than the Common Buzzard, 



