HONEY BUZZARD. 
209 
Esq. to whom w r e are indebted for a notice of it. 
In other parts of England it seems also very rare, 
in the north of Scotland it has not occurred at 
all, and its range in Britain maybe limited to the 
south of the Forth. A single specimen only is 
recorded to have been killed in Ireland in the 
vicinity of Belfast.* On the Continent, it occurs 
frequently in France and towards the south, but 
we do not trace it out of Europe, on the con- 
fines of Asia. Its flight is light and buoyant, 
and it is said to frequent watery places in search 
of the Libellulidce, but some original descrip- 
tion of its habits is yet a much wanted deside- 
ratum. Most authors record its preying on birds, 
small animals, reptiles, &c. During the greater 
part of the year we should doubt if much food 
of this kind was looked after, and we would 
rather conclude that it was only during the dead 
of winter that the want of the Hymenoptera and 
the nests of Bees and Wasps would drive it to 
seek a stronger and less easily captured prey. As 
an important addition to its habits, we transcribe 
entire an account given by Mr Selby of the 
destruction of a wasp’s nest near Twizell by this 
bird, which was read before the Berwickshire 
Naturalist's Club, in 1836 : — 
“ This individual was caught in a steel spring- 
* See Mag. of Nat. Hist. vi. p. 447 
o 
