frequently as it does in Guernsey, though still only as an autumnal
visitant.

It is included in Professor Ansted's list, but only marked as occurring
in Guernsey, and there is one specimen in the Museum.


11. ROUGHLEGGED BUZZARD. _Buteo lagopus_, Gmelin. French, "Archibuse
pattue" or "Buse pattue."--Though its visits seem not so absolutely
confined to the autumn as the Common Buzzard, the Rough-legged Buzzard
is a much more uncommon visitant to the Channel Islands, and can only be
looked upon as a rare occasional straggler. Mr. MacCulloch informs me
that one was killed near L'Hyvreuse, which is perhaps now more commonly
known as the New Ground, in Guernsey, about Christmas, 1870, and I
found one at the bird-stuffer and carpenter's shop at Alderney, which
had been shot by his friend who shot the Greenland Falcon, but I could
get no information about the date except that it was late autumn or
winter, and about two years ago. These are the only Channel Island
specimens of which I have been able to glean any intelligence. Probably,
however, it has occurred at other times and been overlooked. As it may
have occasionally been mistaken for the more common Common Buzzard, I
may say that it is always to be distinguished from that bird by the
feathered tarsus. On the wing, perhaps, when flying overhead, the most
readily observed distinction is the dark band on the lower part of the
breast. I have, however, seen a very dark variety of the Rough-legged
Buzzard, in which nearly the whole of the plumage was a uniform dark
chocolate-brown, and consequently the dark band on the breast could not
be seen even when one had the bird in one's hand, and had it not been
for the feathered tarsus this bird might easily have been mistaken for a
very dark variety of the Common Buzzard, and when on the wing it would