FALCONID&. 323 
THE ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZARD. 
Burteo tacdépus (J. F. Gmelin). 
The Rough-legged Buzzard—distinguishable at a glance from 
the preceding species by having the front and sides of the legs 
feathered to the toes—is an irregular autumnal visitor to England ; 
considerable numbers, chiefly of immature birds, sometimes making 
their appearance in the eastern counties, and remaining, if 
unmolested, for the winter. In the south and west it is less 
frequent ; but it is not rare in the midlands and northward, its line of 
migration appearing to follow the Pennine range. In some of the 
northern and eastern parts of Scotland it is of almost annual 
occurrence ; and in the winters of 1875-76, 1880-81, and the 
autumn of 1891, it was numerous down to the east and even the 
south of England. To Ireland, however, its visits have only been 
recorded about ten times: two of these in 1891 and one in 1895, 
all three in November. The often-repeated statement, made in 
1836, that the Rough-legged Buzzard nested, “year after year, on 
the ground, amongst the heather, in the moor-dells,” near Hackness, 
in Yorkshire, rests upon a gamekeeper’s recollection of twenty-four 
cc 2 
