ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZARD. 
4T 
thousands of birds to pass without pursuing them. The greatest feat I have 
seen them perform was scrambling at the edge of the water, to secure a 
lethargic frog. 
They alight on trees to roost, but appear so hungry or indolent at all times, 
that they seldom retire to rest until after dusk. Their large eyes indeed 
seem to indicate their possession of the faculty of seeing at that late hour. I 
have frequently put up one, that seemed watching for food at the edge of a 
ditch, long after sunset. Whenever an opportunity offers, they eat to excess, 
and, like the Turkey Buzzards and Carrion Crows, disgorge their food, to 
enable them to fly off. The species is more nocturnal in its habits than any 
other Hawk found in the United States. 
M. Temminck says that this species frequents the north of Europe in 
autumn and winter, and it is at times seen in Holland. My friend Mr. 
Yarrell states, that, “although it has now been killed once or oftener in 
almost every county in England, it has rarely been known to bi’eed there, 
and is usually obtained in the spring or autumn, when changing its latitude 
from south to north, or vice versa.” 
The number of meadow mice which this species destroys ought, one might 
think, to ensure it the protection of every husbandman ; but so far is this 
from being the case, that in America it is shot on all occasions, simply 
because its presence frightens Mallards and other Ducks, which would alight 
on the ponds, along the shores of which the wily gunner is concealed ; and 
in England it is caught in traps as well as shot, perhaps for no better reason 
than because it is a Hawk. But so scarce is it in the latter country, that I 
never could procure one in the flesh there. 
My friend Mr. Swainson considered our bird in its immature plumage, in 
which he has figured it in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, as the true Falco 
lagopus ; and Dr. Richardson, in the same work, speaks of it as follows : — 
A specimen of this bird, in most perfect plumage, was killed in the month 
of September, by Mr. Drummond, on the Smoking river, one of the upper 
branches of the Peace river. It arrives in the Fur Countries in April or 
May, and, having reared its young, retires southward early in October. It 
winters on the banks of the Delaware and Schuylkill, returning to the north 
in the spring. It is by no means an uncommon bird in the districts through 
which the expedition travelled, but, being very shy, only one specimen was 
procured. A pair were seen at their nest, built of sticks, on a lofty tree, 
standing on a low, moist, alluvial point of land, almost encircled by a bend of 
the Saskatchewan. They sailed round the spot in a wide circle, occasionally 
settling on the top of a tree, but were too wary to allow us to come within 
gun-shot; so that, after spending much time in vain, we were fain to relin- 
quish the chase. In the softness and fulness of its plumage, its feathered 
