90 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



versatile hunters. I have seen them circle over and hunt a meadow 

 as a red-tailed hawk would ; and I have seen one hover in air for some 

 time like a sparrow hawk and then shoot straight down to the ground 

 at high speed." 



FALCO AESALON AESALON Tunstall 



Contributed by Francis Charles Robert Jourdain 



The claim of the merlin to a place in the American list rests, 

 according to the fourth edition of the A. O. U. Check-List, on the 

 fact that it is "accidental in Greenland." The latest and best author- 

 ity on Greenland birds is the monumental work "Danmarks Fugle", 

 initiated by the late E. Lehn Schi0ler, of which the third volume, 

 dealing with the Raptores, was completed with the help of R. Her- 

 ring, H. Scheel, and A. Vedel Taning. Here two races of the merlin 

 are recognized from western Europe, the typical race (which most 

 European ornithologists regard merely as a form of the pigeon hawk, 

 F. columbarius, and which, according to the A. O. U. Check-List, 

 should be called F. aesalon aesalon Tunstall) and the Icelandic race 

 (F. aesalon subaesalon Brehm). As the nearest point of the Iceland 

 coast is only about 300 miles distance from east Greenland, while the 

 Shetlands are at least 1,300 miles away, it would seem probable that 

 stragglers to the Greenland coast would belong to the Iceland form, 

 if recognizable. This is not the place for an analysis of the distin- 

 guishing points of the two races, but, on the measurements given in 

 "Danmarks Fugle", the Iceland bird is the larger, the wing of Ice- 

 landic males measuring 209.7 mm (average), females 228.9 mm, while 

 Scandinavian birds average 197.8 mm (males) and 213.6 mm (fe- 

 males), and Faeroe birds are intermediate, the males averaging 200 

 mm and the females 221.7 mm. According to Kleinschmidt, who 

 pointed out the difference between the Icelandic and European forms 

 and proposed the name Falco alfred-edmundi for the Iceland bird in 

 1917, there is also a difference in color, the Icelandic bird being 

 darker. In Schi0lcr's work details are given of about four American 

 occurrences: One at sea, south of Greenland, in May 1867; another 

 at Cape Farewell on May 3, 1875; one near Christianhaab on July 1, 

 1883 (?); and one for Angmagsalik, July 3, 1914; with another pos- 

 sible occurrence in 1908. The early records were ascribed to the 

 Scandinavian form, but the distinctness of the Iceland race was not 

 then appreciated; the Angmagsalik bird must be definitely classed as 

 Icelandic (if recognized), as its wing (female, juvenal) measures 228 

 mm and the culmen 15 mm. 



In the following notes no attempt has been made to separate those 

 referring to the Icelandic form from those applicable to the typical 

 race. 



