SHORT-WINGED BUZZARD. 
101 
in which it lays only 2 or 3 whitish eggs, waved with 
greenish, and spotted with yellowish. But, if deficient 
in courage, it is not so in natural affection, feeding and 
tending its young with much assiduity ; and even the 
male, according to Ray, on the death of the female, pa- 
tiently feeds and rears the brood till able to provide for 
themselves. 
According to Buffon, a Mr. Fontaine succeeded in 
taming and domesticating a Buzzard, so completely that 
he exhibited a real attachment to his master, attended at 
the dinner-table, caressing with his head and bill. He 
managed to conquer the dogs and cats of the house, 
seizing the food from them when there were several 
together ; and, as a last resort, when hard pushed by his 
assailants, took wing with a tone of exultation. Fie had 
also a singular antipathy to red caps, which he dexter- 
ously snatched from the heads of the working peasantry 
without being perceived ; he likewise purloined wigs in 
the same manner, and after carrying this strange booty 
to the tallest tree of an adjoining park, he left them there 
without injury. Although he sometimes attacked the 
neighbouring poultry, he lived on amicable terms with 
those of his master, bathing even among the chickens 
and ducklings without offering them the least injury. 
The length of this species, according to Pennant, is 26 inches. 
This must doubtless be the female , which I have found about 25 
inches ; the male is only 20 inches. The bill is dusky, and the 
cere yellow. The head and hind part of the neck is brown, broadly 
edged with white, or brownish white. The back, scapulars, and 
wing-coverts dark brown edged with ferruginous; the rump brown, 
but the immediate tail coverts as well as the scapulars are barred 
with white below the surface. The 3 first primaries black, white at 
their bases and notched on their inner vanes ; the 3d primary a very 
little longer than the Ath ; the inner vanes of all the rest of the quills 
barred but not to their edges, the intervening white bars above 
strongly tinged with ferruginous. Throat, breast, and belly, ferru- 
9* 
