COMMON BUZZARD. 83 
Tur Buzzarp is one of the most common of the larger 
kind of Hawks which inhabit the wooded districts of this 
country, preying upon small quadrupeds, birds, and even 
reptiles. Bulky in appearance and rather slow in flight, 
it remains for hours watching from the same tree, appear- 
ing to prefer the accidental approach of an animal that 
may serve for a meal rather than find it by a laborious 
search, and is seldom observed to remain long together upon 
the wing. Its courage too, as compared with others of the 
Falconide, has been questioned; since it is known to attack 
such animals as are either young or defenceless, which 
it does not pursue and capture by its powers of flight, 
but pounces at upon the ground. Though occasionally 
seen soaring in the air in circles, it is much more frequently 
stationed on a tree, from which if approached it bustles out, 
as observed by the author of the Journal of a Naturalist, 
with a confused and hurried flight, indicative of fear. 
Mr. Macgillivray, in his descriptions of the Rapacious 
Birds of Great Britain, gives the Buzzard a character for 
greater activity in Scotland, as observed by himself; but 
the nature of the country may be the cause of this differ- 
ence in habit, and much greater exertion is perhaps 
absolutely necessary to ensure a sufficient supply of food. 
In Scotland the Buzzard “ forms its nest on rocks, or on 
the edges of steep scars or beds of torrents:” one nest 
described by the writer last named “ was placed on the top 
of a steep bank or rut of a stream, and was composed of 
twigs, heath, wool, and some other substances.” In Eng- 
land the Buzzard usually builds, or takes to, a nest in the 
forked branches of a tree in a large wood: the materials 
with which the nest is made, or repaired, are similar to 
those that have been already named. 
The female lays two or three, and sometimes four eggs, 
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