vulgaris_, Leach), though the English epithet is nowadays
hardly applicable. The name buzzard, however, belongs quite as rightfully
to the birds called in books "harriers," which form a distinct subfamily of
_Falconidae_ under the title _Circinae_, and by it one species, the
moor-buzzard (_Circus aeruginosus_), is still known in such places as it
inhabits. "Puttock" is also another name used in some parts of England, but
perhaps is rather a synonym of the kite (_Milvus ictinus_). Though
ornithological writers are almost unanimous in distinguishing the buzzards
as a group from the eagles, the grounds usually assigned for their
separation are but slight, and the diagnostic character that can be best
trusted is probably that in the former the bill is decurved from the base,
while in the latter it is for about a third of its length straight. The
head, too, in buzzards is short and round, while in the eagles it is
elongated. In a general way buzzards are smaller than eagles, though there
are several exceptions to this statement, and have their plumage more
mottled. Furthermore, most if not all of the buzzards, about which anything
of the kind is with certainty known, assume their adult dress at the first
moult, while the eagles take a longer time to reach maturity. The buzzards
are fine-looking birds, but are slow and heavy of flight, so that in the
old days of falconry they were regarded with infinite scorn, and hence in
common English to call a man "a buzzard" is to denounce him as stupid.
Their food consists of small mammals, young birds, reptiles, amphibians and
insects--particularly beetles--and thus they never could have been very
injurious to the game-preserver, if indeed they were not really his
friends, though they have fallen under his ban; but at the present day they
are so scarce that in England their effect, whatever it may be, is
inappreciable. Buzzards are found over the whole world with the exception
of the Australian region, and have been split into many genera by
systematists. In the British Islands are two species, one resident (the _B.
vulgaris_ already mentioned), and now almost confined to a few wooded
districts; the other the rough-legged buzzard (_Archibuteo lagopus_), an
irregular winter-visitant, sometimes arriving in large bands from the north
of Europe, and readily distinguishable from the former by being feathered
down to the toes. The honey-buzzard (_Pernis apivorus_), a summer-visitor
from the so