34 BUTEO PLUMIPES. 



In the south of the Indian peninsula the Harrier-Buzzard is found, during the cool season, in the Travan- 

 core and Nilghiri hills. 



With regard to the former locality, Mr. Bourdillon, as quoted by Mr. Hume in his " hirst List of the Birds 

 from the Travancore Hills " (' Stray Feathers/ 1876), says: — "This bird, a winter visitor, seems not to be 

 uncommon during December, January, and February." From the Nilghiris Mr. Hume himself records it. 



In the north of India it is found in Nepal, whence Mr. Hodgson's original specimen of Buteo plu- 

 mipes came, along the southern slopes of the Himalayas to Sikhim, and thence into British Burmah, where 

 Captain Feilden procured it in the province of Upper Pegu. On the north of the Snowy range it is found 

 as a winter visitor in Kashgar, though Dr. Stoliczka, during his excursion to that remote region, met with it 

 hut rarely. Another observer, however, Dr. Scully, in his valuable " Contribution to the Ornithology of 

 Eastern Turkestan" ('Stray Feathers/ 187G), mentions, at p. 125, the shooting of three examples at Yarkand 

 in January, and this locality appears to form the westernmost limit of its range. He further remarks that it 

 is common there during the winter, but was never met with in the plains after that season was fairly over, having 

 moved away northwards about the 20th of April. 



It is remarkable that when a movement of these birds does take place southwards in winter so many 

 remain in the great upland of Turkestan, which, one w r ould think, must possess quite as rigid a climate as the 

 more northerly lower-lying regions, where they no doubt breed, and which may very likely be the mountainous 

 country bounding the vast Mongolian empire on the north. Jerdon, however, in his note on B. japonicus 

 ('Ibis/ 1871, p. 337), writes that he procured it " at Darjeeling, in Kumaon, and in Kashmir in summer, at a 

 height of from 9000 to 10,000 feet," which savours much of its breeding in the higher parts of the outlying 

 Himalayas. 



The vast territory lying between the Himalayas and Eastern China has been but little explored, and there- 

 fore this Buzzard has not yet been recorded from it, though it doubtless inhabits, at one season or other of the 

 year, the whole of this region. Pere David, in his work on the ' Birds of China,' says that, although it is found 

 in winter in the provinces of the S.E. of China, it penetrates rarely into the interior, and that he only got one 

 example in the neighbourhood of Pekin. He remai - ks that Middendorf and Dybowski found it in East Siberia ; 

 so that its range would seem to lie in a more northerly track from Turkestan, probably through the north of 

 Mongolia to Siberia and Japan, in which latter country it is the common Buzzard, and styled as such in the 

 ' Fauna Japonica.' In the winter it moves in a southerly direction clown the coast of China, where Mr. Swinhoe 

 found it as far south as the island of Hainan. Captain Blakiston procured it in the island of Yesso, the most 

 northerly of the Japanese group, and Col. Prejevalsky observed it during a voyage from Kiachta to Pekin. 



Habits. — This species seems to prefer open country to forests and jungle, in which it exhibits much of the 

 nature of a Harrier, hunting for its food over marshes and bare land with a steady flight. My specimen, 

 Mr. Wylde informed me, took up its quarters in the cocoa-nut compounds and paddy-fields near his bungalow, 

 about which it appeared to prowl as if intent on the capture of some of the poultry. "When dissected, however, 

 its stomach contained the remains of lizards. Its manners, however, on this occasion were evidently those of 

 a new arrival by no means at home in its quarters ; and after a few days it would evidently have betaken itself 

 to some open upland district in the interior. 



Captain Feilden remarks (' Stray Feathers/ 1875, p. 30) : — "I found this bird at the edge of the parade- 

 ground in tolerably thick tree-jungle with partially cleared underwood." 



In Turkestan, Dr. Scully observed it, in company with Buteo vulgaris and B. ferox, hunting everywhere- 

 over the rush-grown frozen marshes, these birds being " so intent on the work they had in hand that they often 

 seemed to disregard one's presence and approached so close as to be easily shot." 



Further testimony as to its Harrier-like habits is afforded by Mr. Bourdillon's observations of it in the 

 Travancore hills, " where two or three might be seen steadily quartering the ground, and occasionally pouncing 

 on some mouse or lizard," and were noticed " to perch both on trees and on stones, and beat backwards and 

 forwards over a field of young coffee." 



Mr. Swinhoe writes : — " I fell in with this bird on the island of Naochow. He was resting at noon, after 

 a meal off Passer montatius, in one of the bushy trees of a small grove. My appearance disturbed him, and he 

 Mew across heavily, when I secured him." (' Ibis/ 1870, p. 87.) 



