12) LONG-LEGGED BUZZARD. 
its chief food. It also preys on rats and mice, and on quails, snipes, 
and partridges, but is reduced to take the birds on the ground. I 
have seen it, however, make a splendid stoop at a quail, -which, 
after being flushed, chanced to alight on a bare spot, so as to be 
visible to the bird as he followed it with his eye on the wing, and 
marked it settle. Teal, and even ducks, are frequently slain by our 
bird in the same way. If he can perceive them take wing, even at 
half a mile's distance, he is up with them in an instant, and is sure 
to capture them, unless they are under cover in a moment after they 
touch the earth." 
An adult male in the Norwich Museum has the head, nape, 
throat, belly, and under tail coverts dirty white, with ferruginous 
and brown markings on the head and neck. Thighs chesnut brown. 
Back light ferruginous, with dark, centres to each feather. Upper 
wing coverts hair-brown; primaries externally ash-brown, terminating 
in dark brown; the upper and inner half of each barb white. Tail 
feathers cinnamon brown, lighter in the centre, and barred slightly 
above, more strongly below, with eight transverse bands of darker 
brown. 
The figure of this bird is from a drawing by Mr. Reeve, of the 
Norwich Museum; a male specimen in the splendid collection of which 
he is the able curator. 
