The Zoologist— Februaiiy, 1874. 3871 



Peregrine Falcoti.— On the 24th another peregrine, also a young 

 female, was shot near Milverton by a boy who was out with a gun : 

 the boy's father brought this bird to me a few days afterwards : it 

 was fat and in very good condition, though there was nothing in 

 the stomach but a little fur, which might have been that of a hare 

 or rabbit. 



December, 1873. 



Common Buzzard and Brown Owl.— On the 1st two common 

 buzzards were brought to me by the keeper at Cotheleston, with 

 the following note giving an account of the capture. I had been 

 shooting there the day before. " Sir,— You will remember a pigeon 

 being shot at the corner of Badger Coppice, and falling into the 

 field ? I went for it when we had finished shooting, and found the 

 buzzard eating it. I had a trap set, and caught it the same evening. 

 The one with its leg broken was caught at a pigeon the same 

 evening by Grub Bottom." The two places mentioned are on the 

 south-east side of the Quantocks, and not far from where the honey 

 buzzard was killed. Another common buzzard was shot or trapped 

 by this same keeper about a fortnight before. I think a note of the 

 capture was sent you by Mr. Malhew. I much fear that this system 

 of trapping, so vigorously carried on by keepers, will soon quite 

 exterminate not only the common buzzard, but all our hawks and 

 owls. My friend the keeper is quite as ruthless a destroyer of 

 brown owls as he is of buzzards j for he says that they (the brown 

 owls) carry ofi'his young pheasants in great numbers at night from 

 the coops. If he is to be believed, the way in which the owls effect 

 this robbery is curious and daring. He says they fly by the coop 

 so close as to disturb the hen while she is hovering her young ; she 

 jumps up in a rage, the young ones run out, and some are of course 

 carried oflT by the owl. I am not generally a great believer in a 

 gamekeeper's Ornithology, or his evidence against what he calls 

 " feathered vermin ;" but this story about the brown owls was told 

 with much confidence, the keeper declaring he had often watched 

 and seen them do it. But to return to the buzzards sent me on 

 the 1st: one of these I gave to the Museum at Taunton; the other 

 I skinned myself, and afterwards examined the contents of the 

 stomach, which rather surprised me ; for in it I found a considerable 

 portion of the gizzard of some other bird ; a good many grains of 

 barley and a few of wheat ; a considerable mass of what looked like 

 chopped-up bents of grass; a very (cw feathers, the claw and part 



