BUZZARD. 
149 
may now and then be seen towering high up in the air, 
so high that you will not at first notice him, unless you 
hear his wild scream. It is not, however, nearly so plentiful 
as formerly. He is a sad coward, and the common crow 
will not only attack him, but defeat him The 
jays and magpies, too, and even the pewits, will mob 
him, the latter striking at him almost like a falcon. Its 
favourite breeding- places are in the Denny and Bratley 
Woods, Sloden, Birchen Hat, Mark Ash, and Prior's Acre.. 
" Several nests are yearly taken, for the bird generally 
breeds when the bark strippers are at work in April and 
May. A series of its eggs in my collection show every 
variety of colouring, from nearly pure white to richly 
blotched specimens. In the breeding season the birds 
are excessively destructive. A boy, who climbed up to 
a nest in the spring of i860, told me he found no less 
than two young rabbits, a grey hen, and two thrushes as 
provision for the nestlings. However, there is always 
some compensation, for in one which I examined were 
the skeletons of two snakes and a rat picked to the 
bone." 
Mr. Rake, of FOrdingbridge, about that time, included 
it among those species noticed from his garden in the 
town. 
Mr. F. W. Haydon, writing to " Science Gossip " in 
1 866, said that it was then easy to obtain the eggs in the 
Forest, and it is, of course, in this corner of the county 
that the species has retained its footing longest. 
The specimens in the Hart collection are dated 
November, 1876, and November, 1880, and Lord Lilford 
records a nest in the Forest in 1887, Harting one in 1895, 
and another in June, 1901, is noted by Mr. Witherby, 
who thinks the young got off safely. 
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