III. ACCOUNT OF THE BIRDS OBSERVED 

 IN HELIGOLAND 



BIRDS OF PREY 



ACCIPITRES. 



Falcon — Falco. — This great genus of the Falcones inhabits in a 

 large number of forms all the countries of the earth. In the first 

 volume of the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, Sharpe 

 gives the number of all the species of Diurnal Birds of Prey known 

 up to 1874, as 377. They are divided into a large number of genera, 

 but, following Naumann, I liave described all the species visiting 

 Heligoland under the name Falco. These number twenty-seven. 



In the Noble Falcons the type of a Diurnal Bird of Prey reaches 

 its highest development both as regards bodily structure, capacities, 

 and entire mode of life. 



1. — Greenland Falcon [Weisser Falke]. 



FALCO CANDICANS, Linn.i 



Heligolandish : Groot blii-futted falk = Great Blue-footed Falcon. 

 Falco candicans. Naumann, i. 269, xiii. 95, and Blasius, Nachtrdge, 16. 

 Greenland Falcon. Dresser, Birds of Europe, vi. 21. 

 Faucon gerfaut. Temminck, Mannd, i. 1 7, iii. 9. 



A bird of this species, of strikingly large size, was noticed roving 

 about over this island about the end of October 1843, inviting 

 the continuous attention of everybody deeming himself a gunner. 

 The bird was seen everywhere, wherever one might happen to be 

 standing or walking. At one moment it would be speeding from 

 the Dune with short, powerful strokes of the wings, then across the 

 cliff at a height of from two to three hundred feet, and, arrived on 

 the west side of the i.sland, would swoop suddenly down after a 

 quarry to the surface of the water, sometimes in a nearly perpen- 

 dicular direction, sometimes making one or two turns. Then it 



^ Falco candkan-'i, Gmel. 



