108 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 
in North Devon, and came into the writer’s possession. He at first considered 
it an example of the allied American Archibuteo Sancti Fohannis, but Mr. J. H. 
Gurney examined it, and pronounced it a variety of Autco /agopus, writing ‘“‘ Your 
Buzzard is a splendid specimen, and I believe very nearly, if not quite, unique.” 
This bird is black all over, with a purplish sheen upon the feathers of the back, 
and has been well figured by Keulemans in the ‘“ Birds of Devon.” 
One or two instances have been reported of the Rough-legged Buzzard having 
nested in the British Isles, but they are regarded with considerable scepticism by 
competent ornithologists. The keeper of Sir J. B. V. Johnstone reported that a 
pair nested for many years (from about 1836) on the ground among the heather 
in the moor-dells, near Ash-Hay Gill, Whisperdale, about three miles from Hack- 
mess, in Yorkshire: “there was no mistake, as the birds were feathered down to 
the toe-ends,” and were only seen at the nesting season. But it is quite contrary 
to the habits of this species, as Saunders points out, to nest upon the ground. 
Next, Thomas Edwards, of Banff, stated that nestlings had been taken from a 
wood in his neighbourhood, in 1864. Then, the Rev. A. C. Smith, in his Birds 
of Wilts., writes that in 1862 ‘“‘a pair succeeded in hatching out five young ones 
near Tisbury.” Some of these were stuffed, but it does not appear that they have 
ever been satisfactorily identified, and in all three of the instances given it is most 
probable there was some mistake. 
The plaintive cry of the Rough-legged Buzzard has also, like that of the 
Common Buzzard, been compared to the mewing of a cat. 
