9686 Birds. 



than one or two pairs left. I remember the lime when the large woods 

 in this neighbourhood were so well stocked with them that it was no 

 nncommou thing to see a row of them, interspersed with the common 

 buzzard, nailed up against a barn. The great ease with which they 

 were trapped, and the little difficulty in discovering their nests, has 

 accounted for most of them. I am happy to say I possess a very fine 

 pair in an aviary, taken some few years ago in Stokes Wood, at that time 

 a great ornament to the Valley of the Ouny, now, alas ! cut down and 

 partially cultivated ; here they bred (or many years. 1 had a third 

 live specimen from the same wood, which I gave to Lord Hill. It may 

 not perhaps be generally known that the kite, when taken care of and 

 protected froui harm, will live to a gieat age; at the ]ireseut time 

 1 know of one, a pinioned bird, which has lived at largo in a garden 

 for nearly forty years, and is still healthy and well : anotiier has 

 survived for twenty-one years, under similar circumstances : both 

 these birds are females, and were taken from the nest, in Walcot 

 Woods. 



Common Buzzard (Btiteo vulgaris). — The same persecution which 

 has destroyed the kite has worked a still more utter destruction of the 

 conunon buzzard ; except in the more remote wilds of North Wales, 

 1 believe there is scarcely a bird now left anywhere. One of the last 

 Shropshire-killed specimens I have seen is in my own collection, 

 obtained from the Wrekin. There is a tame bird in the garden at 

 Longner, near Shrewsbury, the seat of Mr. Robert Lingen Burton, 

 which not only lays two or three eggs every spring, but has a par- 

 ticular fancy for sitting on them. She has once or twice been supplied 

 with hen's eggs, which she has sat steadily upon, and has reared the 

 chickens, evincing all the cares and anxieties of their natural parent. 

 A fact similar to this was mentioned by Mr. Yarrell. 



RoiKjhlegged Buzzard (Buteo lagopus). — Very rare in this county : 

 1 have never seen a recent specimen. Mr. Eytou mentions one in his 

 collection, killed near Ludlow, and Mr. Henry Shaw tells me of two 

 more, one killed on the Sliperslones, the other at the Vessons Coppice, 

 near Pontesbury. 



Honey Buzzard (Pernis apivorus). — I have within the last few days 

 had a beautiful pair of these rare birds brought to me, trapped within 

 two miles of this house. When first seen, on the 2nd of June, they 

 were in the act of destroying a pheasant's nest, and had carried out 

 and broken four or five of the eggs. The keeper who found them at 

 once set a trap, and after a very short time secured the male ; the 

 following day the unfortunate female shared the same fate ; in her body 



