The Hon. H. T. Liddell's Notice of the Falco Apivorus. 



No. II. — Some Notice of the Falco Apivorus, or Honey Buzzard, shot 

 in Thrunton Woods, in the Parish of WhitCmgham, in the County of 

 Northumberland, August 31, 1829. By the Hon. H. T. Liddell, 

 M. P. 



Read November I7, 1829. 



This Bird is so extremely rare in the British Isles, that I consider a 

 particular account may be acceptable to the Society. Our learned and 

 accomplished ornithologist, Mr. Selby, to whose inspection the specimen 

 in 'question has been submitted, states, in his Illustrations, that "the 

 instances of this bird being killed in England are but few. Latham 

 says, that during such a number of years as he has been a collector, 

 he has received but one fresh specimen. I have never met with it in a 

 living state, nor been able to obtain it newly killed." 



White, in his Natural History of Selborne, mentions that a pair of 

 Honey Buzzards built their nests on a tall beech tree in that neighbour- 

 hood, in the summer of 1780, and Montagu describes one which was 

 killed in Lord Carnarvon's park, at Highclere, in Berkshire. That dis- 

 tinguished naturalist, in his Supplement to the Ornithological Dictionary, 

 says, that " later observations have served to confirm his former opinion 

 of the very great scarcity of this species in England." 



These three are the only instances which I find recorded of the Honey 

 Buzzard having been met with alive in this country, as Bewick gives no 

 account of the specimen from which his drawing was taken, which, un- 

 like the usual productions of our unrivalled engraver, by no means 

 accurately represents the peculiar form and attributes of this curious 



* A specimen of the Honey Buzzard was shot a few years since on the Moors near 

 Wallington, Northumberland, and which is now preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, at 

 Oxford, having been presented to it by W. C. Trevelyan, Esq. of Wallington. 



