52 Review of the new Continuation 



the world have created a demand for their skins as insatiable as 

 that of old was for the living birds. 



The Gyrfalcon^ so far as we know at present, has only been 

 ascertained to breed along the chain of mountains which separates 

 Sweden from Norway *. Towards the end of summer the young 

 birds would appear, like some of their transatlantic representa- 

 tives, to exhibit " southern proclivities,^^ and, according to Pro- 

 fessor Schlegel, they have, in winter, been taken in Germany and 

 Holland. What may be the eastern limits of the area occupied by 

 this form (which it must be confessed differs so slightly from 

 the Icelander) we have no means of determining. The dark 

 examples seen by von Middendorff, to which allusion has been 

 made, were most likely, however, young birds of this race ; and 

 we should imagine there must be some district in Siberia where 

 both it and the Greenland form occur, just as the Greenland and 

 Iceland birds jointly occupy the land north of Cape Farewell. 



We forbear protracting this article by adding apologies for 

 the introduction of this long dissertation. We have only to 

 show that it is not altogether inexcusable on our part. This is 

 best done by referring to Dr. Sturm's two plates, which com- 

 plete the work. In the first (taf. 390), according to our views, 

 each of the birds represented is wrongly designated. The lower 

 figure is called an old male of " Faico candicans," while we feel 

 convinced that it is a sufficiently accurate representation of the 

 young of the year of the Greenland form ; and the upper figure, 

 considered by the authors to be a young female of "Falco arcticus," 

 is, we are equally certain, that of a fine old Icelander. If there 

 be any truth in the diagnosis we have above given, our readers 

 can easily make out the distinguishing characters for themselves. 

 The longitudinal streaks in the bottom figure, to our mind, 

 clearly indicate the youth of the original, while the transverse 

 barring of the top figure as plainly shows its maturity. With 

 the second plate (taf. 391) we have no fault to find ; we can only 

 regret it was not in the artist's power to have given an original 

 figure of the adult male Gyrfalcon which, together with an im- 

 mature bird of the same form, is there represented. 



* Herr Wallengren puts the southern hmit of its breeding-zone at 63° N. 

 for Sweden, and 60° for Norway (Naumaunia, 1855^ p. 129). 



