A Plea for 
the Buzzard. 
(243) THE BIRD WORLD. 
A Plea for the Buzzard. 
By LICHEN GREY. 
The death or capture of more than 
one specimen of Buteo vulgaris, recently 
chronicled in the daily Press, serves to 
emphasise the fact of how rare the bird 
has become in the country, taking it as 
a whole. In olden days it was 
sufficiently numerous to have earned for 
it the title of Common Buzzard, but 
times are sadly changed, sin syne, so far 
as it is concerned, and except for a few 
favoured localities it is now rarely seen, 
or appears only as a straggler, who has 
wandered out of his proper course on 
migration, or who, in seeking to revisit 
once familiar scenes, falls a victim to 
the wiles of the gamekeeper. The 
illustration shows one such victim that 
had flapped its life away in a cruel gin 
ere it was found. What a pity it is 
that such a fate should overtake so fine 
a bird, or that the exigencies of modern 
game preserving should be considered 
to demand it! 
Innocent of Ill-doing. 
For so large a “ bird of prey,” the 
Buzzard is particularly innocent of all 
ill-doing, and where moles, rats, voles, 
and such small deer are numerous, it 
will confine its attention largely to them. 
It is also partial to snakes—a dinner 
which probably no one will begrudge it 
—and it will never refuse to dine upon 
carrion when that is forthcoming. 
Rabbits are also appreciated, but the 
Buzzard is not quick enough upon the 
wing to capture more than a very 
occasional bird; unless, indeed, the 
latter happens to be wounded, in which 
case it is far better, from every point 
of view, that its sufferings should be 
ended. It is in this way that the 
Buzzard, and other slow-winged Hawks, 
are often of considerable service, even 
in a game country, by killing off weakly 
birds which, if allowed to remain upon 
the ground, could only become the 
parents of diseased and degenerate off 
spring. They are Nature’s scavengers, 
whose mission it is to keep a country 
clean and healthy, and where man has 
usurped the role to himself the result, as 
is now coming, to be more generally 
recognised, is often found to be the 
reverse of satisfactory. 
A Highland Sanctuary. 
In Scotland the Buzzard finds a 
sanctuary in many of the Highland deer 
forests, particularly on the western 
watershed, but in most of the Lowlands 
it is as rarely met with as almost any¬ 
where in England; in Wales' it still 
maintains a footing, and breeds regu¬ 
larly in several counties; in the English 
Lake District, where its position a few 
years ago had grown precarious, it has 
now been scheduled for special protec¬ 
tion under the Wild Birds’ Acts; in 
certain portions of the south-west corner 
of England it is still sufficiently 
numerous to be generally known to the 
country folk, and it is pleasing to be 
able to add that it seems to be appreci¬ 
ated there. Indeed, it may be described 
as one of the characteristic birds of the 
lonely moors of Devon—a sort of 
genus loci, without whose presence the 
tor-capped hills would be lacking in one 
of the chiefest of those charms with 
which it has always been the delight of 
artists to pourtray them—that wildness, 
begot of heath and rock, and oak-clad 
combe, with which the shaggy pony and 
the wild red deer harmonise so delight¬ 
fully. There are few sounds that voice 
