198 Allen's naturalist's library. 



back, rump, upper tail-coverts, and tail much clearer blue- 

 grey, with narrow cross-bars of greyish-black, these bars being 

 of the same width to the extremity of the tail ; lores and fore- 

 head whitish ; crown of head grey, mottled with black ; the 

 sides of the head from behind the eye and the nape varied with 

 whitish ; cheek-stripe, feathers under the eye and on the upper- 

 line of the ear-coverts, as well as the sides of the neck, greyish- 

 black ; the rest of the face whitish, with median lines of black 

 on the feathers ; wing-coverts like the back ; quills dark brown, 

 externally mottled and freckled with grey, not forming regular 

 bars, the inner secondaries exactly like the back ; under sur- 

 face of body white, the throat unspotted, the chest longitudi- 

 nally streaked with black, widening out towards the apex of 

 the feather ; rest of the body rather scantily spotted with grey- 

 ish-black, taking the form of bars on the flanks, under tail- 

 coverts, and axillaries ; under wing-coverts white, wath black 

 markings, scarcely equivalent to bars ; bill blue, black at tip ; 

 feet yellow ; iris dark brown. Total length, 20 inches ; cul- 

 men, i'3 ; wing, i4"5 ; tail, 8-o; tarsus, 2-0. 



Adult Female. — Slightly darker, and a little larger than the 

 male. Total length, 21 inches; culmen, 1*4 ; wing, i5"o; tail, 

 9-5; tarsus, 2-I5. 



Young. — Brown, with fulvous spots and mottlings on the edges 

 of the scapulars and inner secondaries, and rather more dis- 

 tinct on the upper tail-coverts ; tail dark brown, with imperfect 

 bands of fulvous ; wing-coverts and quills externally dotted 

 with minute fulvous spots, the latter internally barred with 

 buff; head brown, mottled with buffy-white on the eyebrow, 

 cheeks, sides of neck, and especially on the nape and hind- 

 neck ; under surface of body white, with central dark brown 

 patches on each feather, those narrower on the throat ; bill 

 horn-blue, yellow at the base of the lov.-er mandible ; feet grey. 



Characters. — The adult male of the Gyr-Falcon is wonderfully 

 like an adult Peregrine, except that the latter has always a 

 darker shade towards the end of the tail, which is never seen 

 in a Gyr-Falcon. 



The Norwegian race of the Gyr-Falcon is always distin- 

 guished by its d:irk head. It has, of course, barred flanks like 



