IRE COMMON BUZZARD. 



275 



as the climber has got np to where he can reach a bird, he catches it by the legs with the left hand, 

 and either twists its neck with his right hand, or stuns it with a blow of the cudgel, and throws it 

 down to his companion on the ground, who crams it into the sack. In this manner two men can catch 

 thirty or forty in the evening, or, according to Burgomaster C., as many even as seventy or eighty ; and 

 Captain E. relates that twenty were obtained one evening from the same tree. They are easiest to 

 catch when it is dark and blowing hard, so that the bird cannot easily hear the noise. In all, many 

 hundreds are caught annually, some of which are cooked fresh or made into soup, but most are salted 

 down and kept for use during the winter." 



The nest of the Buzzard is generally pluced on some non-evergreen tree at various heights from 

 the ground, but in Scotland it builds on rocks. The usual number of eggs is three or four, and these 



COMMON BUZZARD. 



are a bluish- white, with reddish blotches. They vary a good deal in colour, some being r-ather richly 

 marked, while others are almost colourless. The time of breeding is generally the month of April, or. 

 in severe seasons, early in May. A Crow's nest is occasionally taken possession of. When the bird 

 makes its own nest, this is formed of large branches with a lining of grass, occasionally of a few 

 feathers. No bird varies more than the Buzzard in plumage, and many beautiful variations in its 

 dress take place before the adult plumage is gained. The old bird is almost entii-ely brown above and 

 below, the breast and abdomen generally having a more or less barred appearance ; the quills are brown, 

 banded with darker brown, and shaded with grey on their outer aspect ; the tail is ashy-brown, more or 

 less inclining to rufous, and having twelve or thirteen bars of darker brown. Young birds have a great 

 deal of white about their plumage, some of them being nearly cream-coloured. The size of the adults is 

 about twenty-two inches, and the sexes vary a little in dimensions, the wing of the female being perhaps 

 one inch longer than that of the male. 



The great utility of the Buzzard in destroying Mice ought to render it an object of protection and 

 encouragement, for the number of small Mammals destroyed by these birds is immense. Brehm 



