Note on the Changes in the Plumage of the Honey Buzzard.
By William R. Fisher, Esq.
Although the honey buzzard has been long known as an occasional visitor to this country, and many specimens have consequently been taken, yet the intervals at which it makes its appearance are so uncertain, and the plumage of examples captured at the same time (for it generally arrives in small flocks) is frequently so different, that the changes through which it passes are still a matter of dispute amongst ornithologists.
The most certain way of ascertaining the nature of these changes, and the order in which they succeed each other, is by bringing up young birds, and watching the effects of the various moultings. Thus Colonel Montagu discovered the ringtail to be the female of the hen harrier; whilst the latter bird was distinguished from the ash-coloured, or, as it is now generally called, Montagu's harrier: and by somewhat similar means, several of our birds, which had been previously divided into two or even three different species, have been shown to be the same, and the difference in their colours has been proved to arise from certain periodical changes, or from difference in age or sex. Amongst these the dunlin and the purre have been identified, and the mountain and tawny buntings have been shown to be the snow bunting in immature and intermediate states of plumage. But as the honey buzzard has, I believe, never, except in the instance recorded by White of Selborne, in the year 1780, been satisfactorily ascertained to have bred in this country, British ornithologists are deprived of this means of watching the changes by which it ultimately assumes the adult dress. For even if it were possible to procure the eggs or young from those countries of the East to which this species is said to be indigenous, the process would be so tedious and expensive, that few naturalists would be willing to undertake it; and the difficulty of rearing young birds, and the many casualties to which they are subject during the process of moulting, are well known. A comparison of the different specimens taken from time to time in this country appears therefore to be the only method by which this object can be attained; and as the pages of 'The Zoologist' afford an excellent opportunity of making such a comparison, I have made drawings of such specimens as were within my reach, which, with descriptions of the birds from which they were made, I now beg to enclose. And I hope that if some of your numerous correspondents will, as far as they are able, do the same, some light may be thrown upon the natural
