. A dictionary of birds . , which species usually known as the Common Buzzard, Buteo vulgaris, of Leach, though the English epithet is nowadays hardly applicable. The name Buzzard, however, belongs quite as rightfully to the birds called in books Harriers, and by it one of them, the Moor-Buzzard, Circus xruginosus, is still known in such places as it inhabits. Puttock is also another name used in some parts of the country, but perhaps is rather a synonym of the Kite, Milvus idinus. Though ornitho- losical Avriters are almost unani- mous in distinguishing the Buz-zards as a group from the Eagle
. A dictionary of birds . , which species usually known as the Common Buzzard, Buteo vulgaris, of Leach, though the English epithet is nowadays hardly applicable. The name Buzzard, however, belongs quite as rightfully to the birds called in books Harriers, and by it one of them, the Moor-Buzzard, Circus xruginosus, is still known in such places as it inhabits. Puttock is also another name used in some parts of the country, but perhaps is rather a synonym of the Kite, Milvus idinus. Though ornitho- losical Avriters are almost unani- mous in distinguishing the Buz-zards as a group from the Eagles,the grounds usually assigned fortheir separation are but slight, and the diagnostic character thatcan be best trusted is proljably that in the former, as thefigure shews, the bill is decurved from the base, Avhile in the. Buzzard. (After Swainson.) aisa its length straight third ofshort and round, Avhilegeneral Avay Buzzards The head, in the Eagles are smaller than are several exceptions to this statement. latter it is for abouttoo, in the Buzzardsit is elongated. InEagles, though thereand have their plumage more mottled. Furthermore, most ifnot all of the Buzzards, about which anything of the kind iswith ceitainty known, assume their adult dress at the first moult,while the Eagles take a longer time to reach maturity. TheBuzzards are line-looking birds, but are slow and heavy of•Hight, so that in the old days of falconry they were regardedwith infinite scorn, and hence in common English to call aman a buzzard is to denounce him as stupid. Their foodconsists of small mammals, young birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects—particularly beetles—and thus they never could havebeen very injurious to the game-preserver, though they have fallenunder his ban, if indeed they were not really his friends; b
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Keywords: ., bookauthorlyde, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds
