4830 Tue ZooLocist—Marcu, 1876. 
when a retriever, which had been at his heel, suddenly rushed forward and 
pinned something in a thick quickset hedge, which eventually proved to be 
a buzzard, which had in some way got entangled or jammed in the thick 
hedge. The keeper, with more sense than most of his brethren, took it 
home with him and kept it alive, and it subsequently passed into my pos- 
session, and a capital bird it is. With a clipped wing, it has the run of our 
walled kitchen garden, a treatment which combines the advantages of 
preserving the bird’s health in the highest degree, and also requiring a 
minimum of attention. As a bird-scarer, I have always found a captive 
hawk a complete failure, which no doubt is a very general experience, 
although I feel sure a handicapped hawk keeps his eye on the small birds, 
even when one would the least suspect it. The gardener was one day 
defending the early peas from the attacks of small birds, and having shot a 
sparrow walked forward to pick it up, but before he could do so out strutted 
the buzzard from behind the peas, and ran off with it. Their run always 
reminds me of the pictures of hunted ostriches; with wings partly raised, 
head lowered and neck outstretched, they stride away in grand style and at 
a great pace. This winter, whenever a spell of sharp weather has brought 
redwings and fieldfares about, the gardener has occasionally shot one for the 
buzzard’s benefit; he tells me that they (or at least the individual in 
question) quite understand the use of the gun, and keep on the look out for 
the spoil, so much so that when he the other day winged a redwing, which 
began to run, this buzzard was after it, and caught it directly. As buzzards 
are said to breed in captivity, and have done so on two or three occasions at 
the “ Zoo,”—although, from one cause or another, the young have never 
been reared,—I was anxious to try my luck. Mr. Bartlett very kindly 
gave me a mate for my bird from the Zoo: the only difficulty was as to the 
sexes; I believed my bird to be a female, as it is a very big one; so he 
promised me the smallest specimen he had, by way of making sure of 
getting a male, and it is the smallest buzzard I have seen. It is a good 
deal different from my old one, besides the size; the cere, legs and feet being 
of the palest possible yellow, while in my old one they are bright yellow; 
and the plumage, which in my old one may be roughly described as brown 
on yellow ground, in this specimen is brown on white—more like the 
markings of a female sparrowhawk; but these are, doubtless, in no way 
sexual differences. My old bird proved itself to be a female, as on several 
occasions this summer the garden labourers, while at their work, observed 
her collect two or three pieces of stick or straw, and then sit for a few hours 
upon this apology for a nest. The gardener and this bird are repeatedly 
having some amusing “rows.” One day, seeing her tramping about on a 
newly-sown bed, he drove her off, but directly he turned round to go away 
she also turned and came after him. About this time, too, she hit upon 
the ingenious method of “scoring off” him by pulling up (with her foot) 
