98 ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES. By 0. BOLAM 



in a small runner of water, by the side of the road, near 

 Chillingham Park ; and so little was the poor Buzzard 

 appreciated by its destroyer, that when he came upon it, 

 aU draggled and wet, flapping about in the shallow water, 

 he mistook it for an owl, and merely knocked off its head 

 with his stick, and allowed it to lie where it was for a 

 fortnight, until Spraggan, the head-keeper, found it (still 

 iu the trap) and recognised it, but it was then, of course, 

 in an advanced state of decay. 



I saw a very beautifully marked young Buzzard in the 

 hands of Mr Eobert Duncan of Newcastle, which had been 

 shot on 12th August 1899, on the Allendale Moors, west 

 of Hexham. 



Rough-legged Buzzard. B^iteo lagopus (J. F. Gmelin.) 



One was killed near Harbottle, in the end of December 

 1898, and another at South Hazelrigg, two or three weeks 

 later. The first of these was one of the smallest specimens 

 I have seen; both appeared to be young birds. On 18th 

 October 1898, a rather unusually pale coloured specimen 

 was shot near Backworth ; and I saw a beautiful male, 

 which had beea killed at Unthank on 18th November of 

 the same year. 



In the shop of Mr Robert Duncan, Newcastle, I saw an 

 adult female, a very dark coloured bird, which had been 

 received by liim from Alnwick, on 9th November 1899. In 

 its stomach, he told me with regret, he had found the 

 remains of an old cock grouse, the first time during his 

 long experience that he had ever proved, in this manner, a 

 member of the Buzzard family to have been recently dining 

 upon game, and he added that, after all, the grouse might 

 have been a dead or wounded bird, which the Buzzard had 

 picked up. Tliis not improbable excuse will, however, I am 

 afraid, hardly be accepted as conclusive by the game pre- 

 server, who will rather be inclined to ask, with Shakespeare, 



" Who finds the Partrids:e in the Pattock's nest, 

 Bat niay imagine how the bird was dead, 

 Although the Kite soar with unblooded beak ? " 



