NATURAL UI8T0EY 
LETTER XLIII. 
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 
PAIR of honey buzzards, Buteo apivorus sive 
vespivorus, Rah, built them a large shallow 
nest, composed of twigs and lined with dead 
beechen leaves, upon a tall slender beech 
near the middle of Selborne Hanger, in the 
summer of 1780. In the middle of the month of June a 
bold boy climbed this tree, though standing on so steep 
and dizzy a situation, and brought down an egg, the only 
one in the nest, which had been sat on for some time, and 
contained the embryo of a young bird. The egg was 
smaller, and not so round as those of the common buzzard ; 
was dotted at each end with small red spots, and surrounded 
in the middle with a broad bloody zone. 
The hen bird was shot, and answered exactly to Mr. 
Ray's description of that species; had a black cere, short 
thick legs, and a long tail. When on the wing this species 
may be easily distinguished from the common buzzard by 
its hawk-like appearance, small head, wings not so blunt, 
and longer tail. This specimen contained in its craw some 
limbs of frogs and many gray snails without shells. The 
irides of the eyes of this bird were of a beautiful bright 
yellow colour. 
About the 10th of July in the same summer a pair of 
sparrow-hawks bred in an old crowds nest on a low beech in 
the same Hanger; and as their brood, which was nume- 
rous, began to grow up, became so daring and ravenous, 
that they were a terror to all the dames in the village that 
had chickens or ducklings under their care. A boy climbed 
the tree, and found the young so fledged that they alJ 
escaped from him ; but discovered that a good house had 
been kept : the larder was well stored with provisions ; for 
he brought down a young blackbird, jay, and house-martin, 
