324 ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZARD. 
years earlier, and is contrary to the known habits of the bird; 
while the assertion by Thomas Edward that the nestlings were taken 
from a wood near Banff in 1864, is probably as incorrect as many 
of his other records. 
The Rough-legged Buzzard is the commonest bird of prey in the 
higher districts of Scandinavia, and—beyond the wooded region—in 
Russia, nesting in the latter, irregularly, as far south as lat. 56°, as 
well as in the Baltic Provinces ; while in winter it goes down to the 
northern shores of the Caspian and to the Asiatic side of the Black 
Sea. Eastward it breeds in Siberia down to Baikalia and up to 
Kamchatka ; it is found in Alaska ; and it visits Northern Japan as 
wellas Turkestan during the cold season. Wanderers have occurred 
as far south as Malta and other islands of the Mediterranean, and 
the bird is an occasional winter-visitor to the Pyrenees, though 
only frequent to the north of the Alps and the Carpathians. In 
North America it is represented by the more rufous and darker 
B. sanctijohannts, fondly believed to visit England by owners of 
deep-coloured examples of the European bird. 
The nest is of large sticks when placed in trees, but when on a crag 
it is a slighter structure, lined with grass. The 3-5 eggs, often laid 
by the middle of May, are similar to those of the preceding species, 
but the average dimensions are a trifle larger and the markings are 
sometimes still more handsome. This Buzzard feeds, to some extent, 
on frogs, reptiles and birds, but largely on such small mammals as 
lemmings, moles and mice ; it can even manage an Arctic hare, and 
its partiality for rabbits has often proved fatal to it on the warrens 
of Norfolk and Suffolk. Open or marshy moorlands are more to its 
taste than wooded districts, in which respect it differs from the 
Common Buzzard ; its flight is bolder ; and in the air the white on 
the tail forms a good distinction. By some authorities this and 
other species with feathered legs have been placed in a separate 
genus, Archibuteo. 
The adult has the head and neck creamy-white, streaked with 
rusty-brown ; mantle dark brown; basal part of the tail white, with 
a broad brown subterminal bar and several narrower bars on a 
mottled ground; under parts buffish, barred with rufous brown, 
thickly on the abdomen and flanks ; legs feathered to the toes on 
the front and sides. Length 23-26 in.; wing 17°2-18°5 in.; the 
female being larger than the male. The immature bird (represented 
in the woodcut) is browner in plumage and has less white on the 
tail ; the under parts are streaked rather than barred with brown. 
