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 have been impossible to identify it.  Indeed, though it was immediately distinguishable from the Common Buzzard by its feathered legs, there was some little difficulty about identifying it, even when handling it as a skin.

Professor Ansted includes the Rough-legged Buzzard in his list, but only marks it as occurring in Guernsey.  There is no specimen at present in the Museum.

12.  MARSH HARRIER. Circus Oeruginosus, Linnaeus.  French, “Busard des Marais.”—­This seems to be the least common of the Harriers in the Channel Islands, though it does occur occasionally, and perhaps more frequently than is generally supposed.

There are two specimens in the Museum in Guernsey both in immature plumage; in that state, in fact, in which this bird most commonly occurs, and in which it is the Bald Buzzard of Bewick.

Miss C.B.  Carey records one in the November number of the ‘Zoologist’ for 1874 in the following words:—­“In the May of this year an adult male Marsh Harrier was found in Herm.  Unfortunately it got into the hands of some person who, I believe, kept it too long before bringing it over to be preserved, so that all that remains of it is the head.”  I had no opportunity of examining this bird myself, not even the head, but I am disposed to doubt its being fully adult, as it seems to me much more probable that it was much in the same state as those in the Museum, in which state it is much more common than in the fully adult plumage.  Miss Carey seems only to have seen the head herself, so there may easily have been a mistake on this point.