106 



BRITISH AND EUROPEAN BIRDS. 



Even Ravens, he said, must their croaking avoid ; 

 Nor with screams of the Peacock would he be an- 

 noyed. 



much confusion is found among naturalists in regard to names. 

 I am sorry that it is not in my power to remove these discre- 

 pancies. 



A remarkable trait, mentioned by Wilson, in the character 

 of this bird deserves notice : the Grakles, or Crow Blackbirds, 

 are permitted by the Fish-hawk to build their nests among the 

 interstices of thesticks with which his own nest is constructed. 

 Several pairs of Grakles taking up their abode there, like humble 

 vassals around the castle of their chief; laying, hatching their 

 young, and living together in mutual harmony. Wilson found 

 four of such nest clustered around one nest of the Fishing 

 Hawk. 



" The sailing Osprey high is seen to soar, 

 With broad unmoving wing; and circling slow 

 Marks each loose straggler in the deep below ; 

 Sweeps down like lightning! plunges with a roar! 

 And bears his struggling victim to the shore." 



Wilson's Amer. Ornith. 



The Buteo, Buzzard, or Pultock, inhabits Great Britain and 

 Europe at large; body brown, belly pale with brown spots ; 

 legs yellow : it varies in its colours; length twenty inches; 

 feeds on birds, insects, and small animals. 



The JEruginosus, or Moor-Buzzard, inhabits England, and 

 Europe generally ; body grey ; the crown, arm-pits, and legs, 

 yellow; twenty-one inches long; builds in marshes; lives on 

 fish, aquatic birds, rabbits, and mice; varies in colour. 



My friend, the elegant and accomplished poet and scholar, 

 the Rev. W. L. Bowles, vicar of Bremhill, Wilts, has a Buzzard 

 demesticated so far that it rarely quits the neighbourhood of the 

 house and gardens: it is, of course, occasionally fed; it has 



