Birds. 375 



Note on the Changes in the Plumage of the Honey Buzzard, 

 By William R. Fisher, Esq. 



Although the honey buzzard has been long known as an occa- 

 sional visitor to this country, and many specimens have consequently 

 been taken, yet the intervals at which it makes its appearance are so 

 uncertain, and the plumage of examples captured at the same time 

 (for it generally arrives in small flocks) is frequently so different, that 

 the changes through which it passes are still a matter of dispute 

 amongst ornithologists. 



The most certain way of ascertaining the nature of these changes, 

 and the order in which they succeed each other, is by bringing up 

 young birds, and w^atching the effects of the various moultings. Thus 

 Colonel Montagu discovered the ringtail to be the female of the hen 

 harrier ; whilst the latter bird was distinguished from the ash-colour- 

 ed, or, as it is now generally called, Montagu's harrier: and by some- 

 what similar means, several of our birds, which had been previously 

 divided into two or even three different species, have been shown to 

 be the same, and the difference in their colours has been proved to 

 arise from certain periodical changes, or from difference in age or sex. 

 Amongst these the dunlin and the purre have been identified, and the 

 mountain and tawny buntings have been shown to be the snow bunt- 

 ing in immature and intermediate states of plumage. But as the ho- 

 ney buzzard has, I believe, never, except in the instance recorded by 

 White of Selbome, in the year 1780, been satisfactorily ascertained 

 to have bred in this country, British ornithologists are deprived of 

 this means of watching the changes by which it ultimately assumes 

 the adult dress. For even if it were possible to procure the eggs or 

 young from those countries of the East to which this species is said to 

 be indigenous, the process would be so tedious and expensive, that 

 few naturalists would be willing to undertake it ; and the difficulty of 

 rearing young birds, and the many casualties to which they are sub- 

 ject during the process of moulting, are well known. A comparison 

 of the different specimens taken from time to time in this country ap- 

 pears therefore to be the only method by w^hich this object can be 

 attained; and as the pages of * The Zoologist' afford an excellent 

 opportunity of making such a comparison, I have made drawings of 

 such specimens as were within my reach, which, wdth descriptions of 

 the birds from which they were made, I now beg to enclose. And I 

 hope that if some of your numerous correspondents will, as far as they 

 are able, do the same, some light may be thrown upon the natural 



