ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZARD. 199 
relinquish the chase, after spending much time in 
vain.”* They delight in low situations for their 
hunting districts, and prey on the various water- 
fowl, small mammalia, frogs, and toads ; they 
pounce on their prey, and do not pursue it, 
though Audubon remarks, “ It now and then 
pursues a wounded one ;”f their flight is smooth 
and slow, and from the structure of the feathers, 
noiseless and buoyant, soaring in the breeding 
season like the Common Buzzard. 
Audubon, when describing this bird, has 
advanced an opinion which it may be proper 
shortly to notice. He considers the Rough-legged 
Buzzard as the young of the Black Hawk, F. 
niger, of Wilson. We have had no opportunity 
of comparing the birds, but we feel inclined to 
consider the opinion erroneous. W e find frequent 
records of the bird breeding in the supposed 
immature plumage. We do not know F. niger as 
a European bird ; — and we suspect that the young 
state of F. ( Buteo ) niger will very closely resem- 
ble our European bird, and that it has thus, in 
some instances, been confounded with it, which 
an inspection of the figures of Wilson (pi. 53, 
fig. 2) tends to confirm. The subject is never- 
theless worthy of investigation. 
The form of the Rough-legged Buzzard is more 
* Faun. Bor. Am. ii. p. 53. 
t Orn. Biog. ii. p. 378. 
