77 



THE HONEY BUZZARD. 



Pernis apivorus, Linn, (sp.) 

 Falco „ „ 



Is a very rare summer visitant. 



On the 11th of June, 1833, a fine male specimen of the Honey 

 Buzzard, unrecorded as having before occurred in Ireland, was 

 shot by Robert G. Bomford, Esq., in his demesne of Annadale, 

 near Belfast. This gentleman, on being informed of the rarity of 

 the bird, kindly presented it to the Belfast Museum. A similar 

 bird, most probably the female, accompanied the one that was 

 shot. I saw the specimen when recent, and found the bill and 

 forehead covered with cow-dung in such a manner, as to lead to the 

 supposition that the bird had been searching for insects in that sub- 

 stance. On examination of the stomach, which was quite full, it was 

 found to contain a few of the larva?, and some fragments of perfect 

 coleopterous insects, several whitish-coloured hairy caterpillars, the 

 pupae of a butterfly, and also of the the six-spot burnet-moth 

 (Zygcena filipendulce), together with some pieces of grass, which 

 it is presumed were taken with the last-named insect, it being on 

 the stalks of grass that the pupae of this species of Zygcena are 

 chiefly found. This insectivorous food must have been a matter 

 of choice to the honey buzzard, the bird being in the full vigour 

 of its powers, and the district in which it was killed abounding 

 with such birds, as, were they its natural or wished-for prey, it 

 might have easily captured and destroyed. 



The individual thus dwelt upon, and of which a notice appeared 

 in the Magazine of Natural History for 1833, vol. vi. p. 447, 

 was a mature male. The bands on the tail exhibited a greater 

 inequality than is represented in any figure I have seen, the first 

 and second being less than an inch apart ; the third, more than 

 two inches and a half distant from the second band. 



In the summer of 1838, a honey buzzard, shot in the grounds 

 about Kilruddery House, in the county of Wicklow, the seat of 

 the Earl of Meath, came into the possession of T. W. Warren, 

 Esq. of Dublin. A second individual was in company with it, 



