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cream-yellow, and almost yellowish white, some almost uniform in colour, whereas others are varied, 

 the latter being most numerous ; indeed he says that it is very rare that one is obtained without some 

 dark markings in the plumage. 



Obs. There is some little difficulty respecting the synonymy of the present species, which has been described 

 under so many names. So far as I can understand, Aquila glaucopis of Merrem, The Spotted Falcon 

 of Pennant, and Falco albus of Daudin all refer to varieties of the common Buzzard ; but all these are 

 open to grave doubt, and I have therefore deemed it best not to allow a doubtful name to take pre- 

 cedence of an undoubted one, and have preferred to retain Leach's appellation of Buteo vulgaris, by 

 which our common Buzzard has so long been known, rather than adopt either of Gmelin's very uncer- 

 tain specific names of glaucopis or versicolor, or Daudin' s albus. 



So far as I can ascertain, the range of our common European Buzzard is more limited than that 

 which has generally been assigned to it : it inhabits Europe generally, not ranging far into Asia, 

 except that it is stated to occur in Turkestan ; and it appears to be but a rare winter visitant in 

 Africa. 



In Great Britain it is now a rare bird ; but it still breeds not only in one or two localities in 

 the north of England, but also more commonly in Scotland, in places where it is not subjected to 

 great persecution. I possess eggs taken in Cumberland, but for obvious reasons refrain from 

 giving the exact locality; and Mr. A. G. More, writing on the distribution of birds in Great 

 Britain during the breeding-season, says (Ibis, 1865, p. 12) that it "is by no means common, 

 and is nearly exterminated in our eastern and midland counties, but still breeds regularly in 

 several parts of the west and north of England." Mr. Stevenson writes that a few visit Norfolk 

 in the spring and autumn, but it has for some years ceased to breed in that county. Mr. Cecil 

 Smith, writing to me from Somersetshire, says that " it would be numerous in most parts of this 

 county if it were not for the gamekeepers, who try to trap it on every opportunity ; and as it is a 

 stupid bird, it easily falls a victim. In North Devon it is more numerous than here, and seems 

 to have been unusually so this autumn and winter ; for, when at Mr. Rowe's shop at Barnstaple 

 in November last, I saw three or four which he had not then had time to skin, and several others 

 which were being set up ; since that he has written me word he has had many more. In the 

 Channel Islands it appears to be an occasional straggler ; when I was in Guernsey, in November 

 1871, I saw one in the flesh at the shop of Mr. Couch, the bird-stuffer, which had just been shot 

 in Alderney ; and he subsequently wrote to me of others which had been shot in Guernsey. 



" The contents of the stomach of a Buzzard which had been caught at Cothelston, on the 

 Quantock Hills, in November 1874, seem worth mentioning. There was only a little dark flesh 

 in the crop ; the stomach was quite full and much distended, and contained a few feathers, a 

 great many earwigs, several grains of barley, and one or two of wheat, a good many white stones, a 

 claw and part of the skin of the foot of some other bird, a few small bones, parts of the gizzard of 

 some bird, and a good deal of rubbish that looked like old bents of grass chopped up. Supposing 

 the gizzard to have been that of a Woodpigeon, a good many of these miscellaneous contents 

 may be accounted for, but scarcely the earwigs, which the Buzzard must probably have caught 

 for himself." 



In Scotland, Mr. B. Gray writes, "although it is still found in some numbers in the Inner 



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