11 



rope over a bough. I may here remark that I have often found eggs on the ground in the forest, 

 viz. of Buteo vulgaris, Falco subbuteo (in thickets), Strix flammea, Cypselus apus, and often 

 Sturnus vulgaris. 



" When I had almost reached the nest the bird flew off, but when about fifty paces distant 

 rose into the air and was soon joined by its mate, and both birds watched me take the egg. In 

 this nest were also several wasps' nests and fresh beech leaves. In every instance when I took 

 the eggs I could easily have shot the bird ; but I let them go, so as to be able to secure the eggs 

 the following year. On the 9th of August, 1863, I took two young birds nearly fledged, which 

 I presented to the Zoological Gardens at Cologne. When there, the Director, Mr. Bodinus, 

 assured me that their favourite food was white bread and rolls. Unfortunately they died, from 

 not being taken in early enough in the winter. 



"During ten years I have taken here the eggs out of about thirty nests, and always found 

 two, only in one instance three, which latter I sent to Seidensacher. I generally took them 

 about the 6th of June ; but they are frequently not deposited before the middle of June, and 

 once only was one laid in May. The interior of the egg is sometimes greenish, sometimes whitish 

 yellow. Seidensacher states that he has only found the latter to be the case ; but I have six 

 which are green. The Honey-Buzzard arrives here in April, and leaves us in September, some- 

 times in October." And in another letter he subsequently writes to me as follows : — •" In a nest 

 which had been tenanted by Milvus regalis the previous year I found on the 21st of May, 1871, 

 green leaves, and saw the pair of Honey-Buzzards sailing above it. On the 28th of May the nest 

 was well garnished with green leaves, and as I commenced to climb the tree the female came 

 and sat on her nest, not leaving it until I was within a metre of it. It contained no egg then ; 

 and on the 10th of June, when I again examined it, I found the foliage withered, and only one 

 small piece of green in the nest, together with an earth-worm, but still no egg. On the 28th of 

 June I took two eggs out of the nest, one of which was about one day, and the other four or 

 five days incubated. One of these eggs was much longer and narrower than the other. The 

 nest was built in the main fork of a beech tree, about a foot in diameter, and was about twenty- 

 eight feet from the ground. 



" The Honey-Buzzards used often to carry green leaves and wasps' nests to another nest ; but 

 no eggs were ever deposited there. The Honey-Buzzard, Kestrel, and Hobby often use a nest as 

 a sort of storehouse, and one finds in them half-eaten birds, mice, earthworms, &c. &c." 



As a rule, I believe that the present species deposits two or three eggs; I have more 

 frequently received the former than the latter number ; but Mr. Benzon informs me that it 

 sometimes lays as many as four. Judging from those I have seen, the eggs of this species vary 

 much, but are, as a rule, very richly coloured. I possess twenty, from Germany, Norway, 

 Sweden, and Finland, all of which, with one exception, are very closely blotched with deep 

 reddish brown on a yellowish brown or rich fox-red ground ; several are so dark as to look 

 almost uniform mahogany brown ; and two are marbled with reddish brown on a rich fox-red 

 ground. One egg only, from Norway, is white, closely blotched with deep umber-brown at one 

 end, and otherwise sparingly marked with large blotches of deep brown. In size these eggs 

 vary from 2 inches by lf^ to 2^- by If J inch. Mr. Benzon gives the sizes of eggs in his 

 collection as being from 49 by 39 to 51 by 44 millimetres, the single specimen from Denmark 



2i 



