90 Falconidce. 



other. Mr. Fisher, of Yarmouth, has taken great pains to com- 

 pare different individuals, and to trace the remarkable change 

 of plumage to which this species is liable ; and he shows, with 

 considerable probability of correctness, which the subsequent 

 observations of others have amply corroborated, that the younger 

 the bird the darker its plumage, which every year increases in 

 whiteness from the almost uniform dark clove brown of the 

 immature bird, to the almost perfect whiteness of the adult. 

 When it has the ash gray plumage on the head, it has often 

 been called the ' capped ' Buzzard. It is of a gentle, kind, and 

 amiable disposition, and may easily be domesticated, and soon 

 becomes attached to its owner: Mr. Knox (who had a good 

 opportunity of observing it) says it resembles a gigantic Cuckoo, 

 and has a humble subdued look about it, quite sufficient to dis- 

 tinguish it from the more martial members of the family, and 

 that its gait was different also ; instead of the hop of the 

 Sparrow Hawk or the leap of the Falcon, and the erect attitude 

 of those birds, its mode of progression was a rapid run, after the 

 fashion of a Lapwing, the head being at the time partially de- 

 pressed.* This confirms the statement of Willoughby, which 

 has been copied by Buffon and Veillot, that the Honey Buzzard 

 ' runs very swiftly, like a hen,' as was shown by Mr. Gurney in 

 the Zoologist for 1844, page 492. I have several authentic in- 

 stances, on which I can rely, of the occurrence of this rare bird 

 in Wiltshire; one of these was seen at Roundway Park about 

 A.D. 1847, and was shot by the keeper in the act of destroying a 

 wasps' nest : Mr. Withers, who preserved it, told me that he took 

 about a dozen wasps and larvae from its stomach. Another, a 

 young one, at about the same date, was killed at West Laving- 

 ton, at Mr. Beckett's, and came into the possession of Mr. Hay- 

 ward, at Easterton. Mr. Rawlence has a specimen killed on 

 Lord Bath's property in this county. Another, as Sir T. F. 

 Grove informs me, was trapped by his keeper at Feme some ten 

 years since, and is now in the hall there. Lord Nelson has a 

 specimen which was killed at Trafalgar. Lord Arundell recol- 

 ' Birds of Sussex/ pp. 139-148. 



