The Honey-Buzzard. 13s 



or the ends of brandies of trees in full leaf, a preference being given to beech 

 leaves; these leaves are continually replaced by the birds as they fade. Dresser 

 has seen the nests protected with freshly plucked branches, as if to form an 

 arbour to shade them, and judging from their greenness, considered that they must 

 be changed daily. He remarks : — " As soon as a nest is garnished with these 

 green leaves one may look out for the eggs." These are usually two in number, 

 rarely three or four. An interval of a week is said to take place between the 

 laying of each egg ; incubation lasts three weeks ; both the male and female take 

 part in sitting. The eggs are rather round and glossy, \ery richly marked with 

 brick-red and deep purple blood-red, upon a ground colour that varies from cream 

 colour to pale brick-red ; some of the varieties are very handsome. The dark 

 colour is sometimes scratched across by pale lines, just as if a painter's graining 

 comb had been employed ; similar scratches, of a bolder kind, also occur in the 

 eggs of the Egyptian Vulture. The eggs measure from 2'05 to i'86 inches, by 

 from I '7 to i"55 inches. 



In a pair of adults the writer has in his collection from Hampshire the male 

 has the crown of the head and sides of the face ash-grey, back of the head and 

 nape brown ; beak and tail grey-brown, some of the feathers on the back have 

 lighter edgings ; the tail has three darker bands, the subterminal the broadest, 

 besides several other narrower wavy bands ; under parts from chin to belh' 

 yellowish-white, the feathers rather sparingly streaked and barred with reddish- 

 brown ; primaries brownish-black above ; greyish-white, barred with dark brown, 

 below ; cere, irides, and legs yellow ; claws brownish-black ; beak blackish horn. 



The female is brown all over, the breast and under surface of the wings 

 3'^ellowish-white, mtich barred with reddish-brown ; on the tail are four darker 

 bands, with other narrower wavy bands, and a few patches of 3'ellowish white on 

 some of the central rectrices ; primaries brownish-black. 



The average length is about twenty inches, the female being but verj' slighth- 

 larger than the male. 



Very old males have the cap distinctly bluer, and the under parts almost 

 entirel}' white, with only a few bars on the flanks. 



In the immature plnmage there is considerable variation ; the usual dress is 

 a uniform chocolate brown all over, with dai'ker primaries, and a white tip to the 

 tail. A young bird in the writer's collection, from Cambridgeshire, ver}' closely 

 approaches a variety figured by Dresser, in which the head and neck are 3•ello^^"ish 

 white, some of the feathers being narrowly tipped and streaked -with rufous-brown ; 

 back rufous brown, many of the feathers blotched and edged with white ; under 

 parts 3'ellowish white, closel3' streaked in the centre of the feathers with dark 



