Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/99

 by this buzzard, whose entire "thighs " (tibiæ) became immersed in the water. It remained thus a considerable time, the spectators conjecturing that the object was to drown the jackdaw ; which, at all events, was done. When this buzzard was stationary on its perch, the smaller hawks, in passing, often struck it. A buzzard from Glenarm Park has come under my notice : at the range of inland rocks called Salagh Braes, and in the cliffs at the Knockagh mountain, near Carrickfergus, pairs lately bred. The species has often been captured at the last locality in fox-traps baited with rabbits, — the trap being concealed from view by mosses shaken over it. From the county of Antrim localities, noticed in this paragraph, with the addition of Macgilligan in the preceding one, it would appear that the buzzard frequents, for nesting, the inland range of basaltic cliffs throughout the north-east of Ireland, wherever it is permitted undisturbed to rear its young. Some of the places named are certainly very near the sea, but none rise precipitously above it. In the finely-wooded park at Shane's Castle (Antrim), I have, at the end of July, heard the young calling from their nest in a large tree.

In the adjoining county of Down, the finely wooded demesnes are the buzzard's chief abode. Specimens from Belvoir Park and Hillsborough Park (several from hence), have come under my observation. The gamekeeper at Tollymore Park states, that they are not unfrequently killed in that neighbourhood, where they are known by the names of kite and glead.

Mr. R. Davis, jun., remarked, in 1841, that he had never known the buzzard to be obtained about Clonmel (Tipperary). It is uncommon in Wexford,* but not so in the neighbourhood of Waterford t and Youghal (Cork) ; J it was never met with by Mr. Neligan in Kerry. A native specimen of this bird which came under my examination, had a few feathers half an inch in length about the middle of one of the tarsi, which was bare for nine lines above them.

The buzzard is common about Aberarder, in Inverness-shire, where it is said to breed in the rocks, though wood, of which little,


 * Mr. R. Davis.

f Mr. J. Poole.

J Mr. R. Ball.