198 NOTES ON THE 



FALCO RUSTIC0L18 GYRFALCO (L ) (354a) 



GYRFALCON. 



In the winter of 1874. I secured a straggler from its habitat 

 in its best winter plumage, and after satisfying myself of its 

 identity, notified the ornithologist of the Smithsonian of my 

 find, and at his request loaned him my specimen, which how- 

 ever. I had had mounted for the museum of the Minnesota 

 Accademy of Natural Sciences, of which I had the honor to be 

 president at the time. My diagnosis was endorsed, and its 

 variety given as Labradora, with the promise of having the 

 proof-sheet sent me of its notice in the large work on the 

 birds of North America, then nearly ready to publish. I 

 received the proof in due time, giving it as above, with the 

 additional statement that it was the first instance of its collec- 

 tion within the United States, but I was not a little surprised 

 on reading the work afterwards, to find the proof-sheet wanting 

 in the text, and the species referred to as occasionally being 

 found within the United States. A notice of the reasons for 

 the change in the advanced sheets would have been the least 

 that the common amenities of life would have called for. I 

 mention the circumstance that others may not be foolish enough 

 to allow their beautifully mounted birds to be dismounted, 

 gutted, and have their plumage clawed over for several months, 

 after which re-stufed, and sent back looking as if it was the 

 remains of an individual that had been through a picking- 

 machine and left in a dirty garret for preservation. If the 

 pinch lay in not having the first and only specimen of "Falco 

 Gyrfalco, variety Labradora," as given in the advanced sheet, 

 presented to the Institution, I can only say that having been 

 given to the Academy, I no longer had the right to so dispose 

 of it. 



The winter of 1874 will be remembered as one of the severest 

 in the history of the great Northwest, and the specimen was 

 doubtless driven south for food. During the same winter the 

 Goshawks in mature plumage were often met with in the pine 

 forests of northeast Minnesota. One of the finest specimens 

 of the mature male of this fine hawk was found starved and 

 frozen in a woodpile, and another was brought to me alive that 

 had followed a hen into a farmers kitchen in the timberland. 

 where it was captured in magnificent plumage, and many more 

 of the young of the year were obtained by grouse hunters in the 

 deciduous forests. 



