Accipitres . 125 



round, whether the Honey Buzzard (Pernis apivorus) 

 still breeds with us. It is an immigrant from abroad, 

 not arriving at the earliest before the end of May, and 

 is difficult of observation in leafy June. Undoubtedly 

 it used to visit us regularly, while a few pairs bred in 

 the New Forest and, by chance, as far north as Ross- 

 shire ; but the greed of collectors has almost exter- 

 minated the bird, and in any one year it is impossible 

 to predict for that following. It is a local species 

 distributed sporadically in summer from about the 

 Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean, across Asia north of 

 the Himalayas and in a slightly different form to Japan ; 

 its flight is fairly strong and its actions on the ground 

 easy, as might be expected from its habit of feeding 

 chiefly on insects, specially wasps, bees and their larvae, 

 in addition to slugs, worms, small mammals and birds. 

 The shrill cry of the adult is little heard. The nest of 

 sticks is lined with fresh leaves ; the two or three eggs are 

 exceptionally round, yellowish white, and finely blotched 

 or almost completely covered with bright red or 

 reddish brown. The colour of the Honey Buzzard is 

 brown, with ash-coloured head and whitish lower 

 surface, the latter being streaked and the tail barred 

 with brown. 



Our next three species are particular favourites of 

 the falconer, but are merely occasional migrants to 

 Britain, and, as they come from the far north, naturally 

 occur for the most part in Scotland. The true Green- 

 land Falcon (Hierofalco candicans), a circumpolar 

 species which breeds north of the Arctic Circle, is in- 

 variably white with black streaks and spots above ; the 

 Iceland Falcon (H. islandus), confined to Iceland, south 

 Greenland, Jan Mayen and north Siberia, is brownish 



