184 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



confirmed by T. C. Heysham. The collection of the late Sir 

 R. C. Musgrave includes an adult female, which his MS. notes 

 state to have been killed at Edenhall. In Westmorland an 

 immature Harrier, which Mr. E. G. Waddilove refers to this 

 species, was killed on a moor near Burgh in September 1890. 

 Mr. Durnford obtained from Williams, the blacksmith at 

 Barrow, a specimen which he ascertained to have been shot on 

 Walney Island in the autumn of 1874. 



BUZZARD. 



Buteo vulgaris, Leach. 



A native of this region even in Pliostocene times, the 

 Buzzard long held its own in many of the wilder valleys of 

 Lakeland ; at the present time a few pairs rear their young 

 every year among our mountain solitudes. Alas, I have 

 examined recent specimens killed over all the western portion 

 of Lakeland, from Eskdale to the Eden valley, from Skiddaw 

 to Kirkby-. Lonsdale. In the days when a primeval forest 

 clothed many of the dales with a dense growth of timber, the 

 Buzzard reared its young in the larger trees, as its habit still is 

 in Spain and Germany, instead of restricting its eyries to situa- 

 tions generally difficult of approach. The harmless character of 

 the Buzzard did not always avail to save it from the persecution 

 of undiscriminating churchwardens. Even in the wild moorland 

 parish of Orton, in Westmorland, the Buzzard was an occasional 

 item of expense to the parishioners. Thus we read in 1639, 

 1 Ihm, for 2 Busard heads — iiijd.' Again, in the accounts for 

 1650-51, ' Ihm, ffor killing of a Bussafd, £00, 00s. 2d.' Even 

 when Clarke wrote, in 1787, the Buzzard's mournful wail must 

 have been a characteristic sound on every fell-side, from Cartmel 

 and the Rusland valley to Borrowdale and even Alston. Some 

 idea of the numbers of Buzzards that formerly haunted Lakeland 

 may be gathered from the fact that, as lately as 1841, a man 

 named Haswell, who was keeper to General Wyndham, destroyed 

 no fewer than fifty within a short time after his becoming keeper. 1 



In the year 1827, the storming of a Buzzard's nest, in a posi- 

 1 Carlisle Patriot, July 30, 1841. 



