122 DESERT BUZZARD. 
in identifying this species with Le Vaillant's tachardus, as mentioned 
in your first edition. That bird was really founded upon a South 
African specimen of Pernis apivorns, as pointed out by the late G. R. 
Gray. The African Buzzard being in fact "Le rougri" of Le Vaillant." 
Mr. Gurney considers there is no difference between this bird and that 
which is named in collections Buteo cirtensis, from North Africa. Mr. 
Gurney came to this conclusion after carefully examining a dozen 
specimens from the Cape of Good Hope, Mogador, Tangier, Erzeroum, 
and the mouths of the Volga. 
Nepal is its most eastern locality according to Mr. Gurney. It 
occurs in Southern India and Ceylon. 
"The appearance of this bird when alive," says Mr. Gurney, "is 
less heavy and more elegant than that of B. vulgaris. My living 
specimen, which was dull brown when I bought it a year ago, has 
moulted into a rich rufous plumage, and one that was alive in the 
Zoological Gardens a few years ago underwent a similar change." 
Buteo desertorum has occurred in Switzerland. It is not resident in 
North East Africa, but is occasionally seen in winter, spring, and au- 
tumn. It has been observed in Western Abyssinia and along the Blue 
Nile, as well among trees as in plains. Heuglin saw three of these 
birds in May, 1861, in the small oasis of Ain-Musah. They were very 
poor in condition, although they had moles, beetles, and grasshoppers 
to feed upon. They had a few lizards and chameleons in their crops. 
It is resident in South Africa, not common, but wide-spread (Layard), 
where it feeds on mice and insects. In this bird the tarsi are feathered 
nearly half their length, and the foot is more powerful in proportion 
than in the Common Buzzard. Newly-fledged birds have a rather 
lively violet metallic hue on the mantle. It occurs in South Africa, 
Algeria, Western Asia, the Volga region, Smyrna, and occasionally in 
Switzerland. 
Mr. Gurney writes: — "The cere, feet, and tarsi of this Buzzard are 
lemon-yellow; the iris is sometimes a light hazel and sometimes yellow, 
probably assuming the latter colour as the bird advances in age; a 
similar variation, which exists in the iris of the Common Buzzard, is 
however, not always referable to age, as I have ascertained by experience. 
The bill is dark lead-colour, but somewhat lighter adjoining the throat 
and cere." 
We are indebted for the drawing from which our figure is copied 
to Mr. Reeve, of the Norwich Museum. It is taken from Mr. Gurney's 
living specimen, and consequently represents the rich rufous plumage 
in which his bird is at the present time. Mr. Gurney has alluded to 
this change of plumage in an extract I have given above. Le Vaillant's 
