The Zoologist — October, 1866. 437 



other was built in a narrow fissure of the same cliff: the sticks forming 

 the foundation of this nest were laid across the fissure bridging it over, 

 and on this platform the true nest was placed. By climbing the 

 opposite crag I had, with the assistance of my telescope, a very perfect 

 view of the domestic arrangements of the kestrels : both these nests 

 contained four young birds nearly fledged. 



Common Buzzard. — I was delighted to find that this now rare bird 

 is not yet altogether banished from the country. From all I could 

 ascertain there are certainly one or two pairs to be found in the 

 Snowdon district. A pair of buzzards have for some years nested on 

 one of the precipices forming the western Basin of Snowdon, almost 

 overlooking the source of the Gorfai. Last year, so I was informed, 

 three young ones were reared and got away from this nest ; this year 

 only one. On the 14th, when exploring the western Basin, I saw one 

 of the old buzzards soaring eagle-like over the eyrie, uttering at 

 intervals its wild, sharp and somewhat melancholy cry ; it was answered 

 from the neighbouring rocks by the young bird, which had some days 

 previously left the nest. Stretched on the ground, with my telescope 

 resting on a boulder, I slowly swept the face of the opposite cliff, and, 

 although guided to the spot by its constantly repeated cry, so nearly did 

 its plumage assimilate to the gray lichen-coloured crags, that I looked 

 in vain, and might, after all, have goije away without seeing it, had it not 

 condescendingly left its lofty perch, and slowly sailing overhead, its 

 wings perfectly motionless, and gradually lowering in a iesv graceful 

 sweeps to the bottom of the hollow, pitched not very far from my 

 position, on the top of a great upright stone, at last affording a splendid 

 opportunity for examining it. This bird had a great admixture of 

 white in its plumage, appearing all over mottled with brown and white. 

 Sitting thus bolt upright on the old weather-worn boulder, he looked 

 anything but what he is called — a dull, inactive, stupid bird. While 

 thus stretched on the mountain side, watching one of the few remaining 

 buzzards left in the country, I could not but regret that the senseless 

 rage for overstocked preserves should have all but deprived us of our 

 noblest birds of prey. What a charm did these wild birds give to the 

 still wilder scenery ; for, except in old Norway, I have never seen a 

 wilder spot. Girt with gloomy cliffs up to the very clouds, all jagged 

 and splintered along the summit, terrific in their wildness and broken 

 ruin, but still beautiful, " for like the walls of some vast temple they 

 stand roofed with sky." Below a wilderness of stone, on every side 

 rocks and giant boulders heaped and piled together in the wildest 



