THE TRUE BUZZARDS. 
15 * 
Mediterranean countries and in South-eastern Europe. It is 
a common species in certain parts of Africa, and is apparently 
only a rare visitor to India, the specimens often identified as 
B. desertorum from this country being, in all probability, reler- 
able to B. plumipes. 
III. red-tailed buzzard, buteo borealis. 
Falco borealis, Gm. Syst. Nat. l p. 266 (1788). /ox . 
Buteo borealis, Sharpe, Cat. B. Bnt. Mus. 1. p. 188 (1874), 
B. O. U. List Br. B. p. 94 (1883). 
Adult Male.-Of large size, and distinguished by its rufous 
tail the head and ear-coverts being smoky-brown, varied with 
darker brown streaks ; the tail-feathers tipped with white and 
crossed with a sub-terminal band of blackish-brown ; under 
surface of body whitish, the breast streaked and the abdomen 
mottled with bars of dark brown ; cere and gape greenish- 
vellow ; bill bluish-black ; feet yellow ; ins pale amber. 1 otal 
length, 21 inches; culmen, 1-55 ; wing, iS'i ; tail, 8-5 ; tarsus, 
^ Adult Pemale.— Similar to the male, but larger. Total length, 
25 inches; wing, i 7'5 5 ‘ail, 9 'S 1 tarsus, 3-8. 
Youuk Birds.— Brown, with the head and neck streaked with 
white ■ sides of face whitish, streaked with brown, the cheeks 
uniform dark brown ; tail brown, slightly washed with rufous 
and crossed with nine bars of darker brown ; under surface of 
body pure white, with brown stripes on the throat, broader on 
the breast, the abdomen and flanks with arrow-head marks ot 
brown ; thighs white, with small transverse spots of pale rufous. 
Characters.— The red tail of the adult sufficiently distinguishes 
this Buzzard. The young birds may be distinguished by the 
longer wing, and by the particoloured thighs, but as there are 
many other species of Buzzard which possess these characters, 
only an examination by an expert can decide any of the young 
birds belonging to the genus Buteo. 
Eangc iu Groat Britain. — The Red-tailed Buzzard is said to 
have occurred once in Nottinghamshire, in the autumn ot 
i860, and is recorded in the list of the birds of that county by 
Messrs. Sterland and Whitaker. 
