ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZARD. 47 



thousands of birds to pass without pursuing them. The greatest feat I have 

 seen them perform was scrambling at the edge of the water, to secure a 

 lethargic frog. 



They alight on trees to roost, but appear so hungry or indolent at all times, 

 that they seldom retire to rest until after dusk. Their large eyes indeed 

 seem to indicate their possession of the faculty of seeing at that late hour. I 

 have frequently put up one, that seemed watching for food at the edge of a 

 ditch, long after sunset. Whenever an opportunity offers, they eat. to excess, 

 and, like the Turkey Buzzards and Carrion Crows, disgorge their food, to 

 enable them to fly off. The species is more nocturnal in its habits than any 

 other Hawk found in the United States. 



M. Temminck says that this species frequents the north of Europe in 

 autumn and winter, and it is at times seen in Holland. My friend Mr. 

 Yarrell states, that, "although it has now been killed once or oftener in 

 almost every county in England, it has rarely been known to breed there, 

 and is usually obtained in the spring or autumn, when changing its latitude 

 from south to north, or vice versa." 



The number of meadow mice which this species destroys ought, one might 

 think, to ensure it the protection of every husbandman; but so far is this 

 from being the case, that in America it is shot on all occasions, simply because 

 its presence frightens Mallards and other Ducks, which would alight on the 

 ponds, along the shores of which the wily gunner is concealed; and in Eng- 

 land it is caught in traps as well as shot, perhaps for no better reason than 

 because it is a Hawk. But so scarce is it in the latter country, that I never 

 could procure one in the flesh there. 



My friend Mr. Swainson considered our bird in its immature plumage, in 

 which he has figured it in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, as the true Falco 

 lagopus; and Dr. Richardson, in the same work, speaks of it as follows: — 

 "A specimen of this bird, in most perfect plumage, was killed in the month 

 of September, by Mr. Drummond, on the Smoking River, one of the upper 

 branches of the Peace River. It arrives in the Fur Countries in April or 

 May, and, having reared its young, retires southward early in October. It 

 winters on the banks of the Delaware and Schuylkill, returning to the north 

 in the spring. It is by no means an uncommon bird in the districts through 

 which the expedition travelled, but, being very shy, only one specimen w r as 

 procured. A pair were seen at their nest, built of sticks, on a lofty tree, 

 standing on a low, moist, alluvial point of land, almost encircled by a bend of 

 the Saskatchewan. They sailed round the spot in a wide circle, occasionally 

 settling on the top of a tree, but were too wary to allow us to come within 

 gun-shot; so that, after spending much time in vain, we were fain to relin- 

 quish the chase. In the softness and fulness of its plumage, its feathered 



