NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE 



Vol. XXn. .-> „ • JUNE 1915. No. 2. 



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NOTES ON FALCONS. 



By ERNST HARTERT, Ph.D. 



YEARS ago, when Professor Oscar Neniuaiin worked at, the Tring Musenm, 

 he and I met each other in our deep interest in the Falcons. Ever since 

 when a boy in Breslau I saw a Peregrine chase pigeons round an ancient church 

 tower, and when, a few years after, I saw them chasing their prey on the shores 

 of the Baltic and the Masurian Lakes, and climl)cd the tall pine-trees in the forests 

 of Rominten, took the lieautiful red eggs and shot the adult birds, the Falcons 

 have been my favourite birds ; while Neumann was deeply interested in them, since 

 he collected most interesting specimens in East Africa and Abyssinia. We went 

 together to Norwich and made notes there on the wonderful series in the Bluseuni, 

 but the chief object of that trip of pleasant memories was the comparison of the 

 type of " Tiiuvmctdiis arthtirl,'' which had, until then, been quite wrongly inter- 

 preted. 



We then made extensive notes, and intended to publish together a series of 

 " Falkennotizen " in the Journal filr Ornithologie, but the diificulty of solving 

 certain questions, other pressing work, and, most of all, the distance apart of our 

 residences, made us postpone, and at last forget altogether, our plans. Since then 

 I had occasion to go through the palaearctic forms of Falcons and many of their 

 allies, and to review them in Part VIII. of my VOgel der paliiurktiHclicn Fimmt. 

 Many new facts have come to light, but, looking over the MS. notes made by 

 US six to eight years ago, I find that much of it might still be published with 

 advantage, as it supplements what I wrote in my book, or refers to forms not 

 mentioned there, and other notes seem to be of some interest, as they go more into 

 detail than it has been possible in my book, or have become necessary from new 

 facts known to me since the publication of Heft VIII. of the book, in August 1913. 



Though I know better than others that the mere seeing and handling of 

 material does not prevent an author from making mistakes, I may as well state 

 that 1 have doubtless examined, and more or less minutely compared and studied, 

 more Falcons than any one else. Apart from the magnificent series in the Tring 

 Museum, I have spent many an hour over those in the British Musenm, I have 

 visited the Norwich and Leyden Museums and handled many Falcons there, liave 

 seen and partially studied the Falcons in the Museums at Berlin, Milan, Turin, 

 Florence, Paris, Havre, and Marseilles, have had in my hands most of the specimens 

 in the Koenig, Erlanger, and Kleinschmidt collections in Germany, the Tristram 

 and Dresser collections in Liverpool and Manchester, and some skins have been 

 Bent to me froni Sjirajevo and Budapest, by Witherby and "(her friends. 



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