HONEY-BUZZARD. 11 



how unexpectedly birds or animals unaware of it, 

 might in consequence be imprisoned. It is easy to 

 form ice to a considerable extent, in a few minutes, 

 if water is poured over a level surface so that none 

 shall escape; for instance, over a wide floor or plain, 

 smoothed with Roman cement, flooded to the depth 

 of less than a quarter of an inch. A thin coating 

 of water thus applied, will, even if the thermometer 

 is scarcely lower than the freezing-point, almost 

 immediately become a sheet of ice, and if repeated 

 two or three times, will form a covering, capable of 

 bearing the heaviest weight without giving way. 

 This was actually practised with success on three 

 successive days in November, near Glasgow, for the 

 purpose of preparing a perfectly smooth sheet of water 

 on a roughly frozen pond, for a game, called, in Scot- 

 land, a curling match. One eighth of an inch in 

 thickness was found sufficient: it immediately froze, 

 and when the game was over at night, a similar addi- 

 tional coating was poured over it, for fresh use. 



We have seen that the common food of the 

 Hawk tribe consists of animals, or birds, dead or 

 living, with the exception of the Kestrel, which 

 preys with equal satisfaction on beetles ; but there 

 is one particular Hawk, called the Honey-buzzard 

 (Falco apivonifi\ rather rare at present in England, 

 whose favourite food is bees and wasps, (and not the 

 honey of the former, as has been erroneously sup- 

 posed from its name,) which it devours greedily, 

 apparently without ever suffering from their stings. 

 There can be no longer any doubt as to the truth, 

 one having been lately shot in the parish of Stoke 

 Nayland, in Suffolk, by a person who saw it first 



