Mr. R. B. Sharpe's Catalogue of Accipitres. 587 



I may also give, for comparison, the following dimensions of 

 Scandinavian examples of F. gyrfalco, collected by the late 

 Mr. Wolley, and preserved in the Norwich Museum, except 

 one male, which is in the British Museum : — 



Wing. 



inches. 



Two males 1420 to 14-50 



Six females 15-50 to 16-25 



I propose now to refer to the Grey Falcon of Iceland, the 

 " Hierofalco islandus " of Mr. Sharpens Catalogue, and the 

 '' Falco islandus" of Gmelin*. 



Mr. Dresser, in the article on this species in the ' Birds of 

 Europe,"* after mentioning its occasional occurrence in the 

 British Islands, writes thus : — " To the continent of Europe the 

 present species straggles but rarely, .... Greenland and 

 Iceland, especially the latter, appear to be its true home.'* 

 Mr. Sharpe, on the contrary, excludes Greenland from his 

 definition of the habitat of H. islandus, including all the grey 

 Falcons of that country under the specific designation of 

 " holbcelli" first proposed by him in the P. Z. S. for ]873, 

 p. 415. 



Fully adult specimens of Grey Jer-Falcons killed in 

 Iceland and in Greenland vary considerably between them- 

 selves ; but, independently of such individual variations, 

 adult examples killed in Greenland generally (and, indeed, 

 so far as I have observed, always f) differ, more or less (though 



* Mr. Seebohm has been so good as to inform me that the species 

 which, according to the rules of nomenclature, is (strictly speaking) 

 entitled to the cognomen of ^^ islandus" is the white Jer-Falcon {H. can- 

 e?icans of Gmelin), to which Latham applied tbe i\t\Q oi " islandus" in 

 the supplement to his ' Synopsis,' p. 282, a year before Gmelin used it for 

 the grey Falcon of Iceland. It seems to me, however (and I believe this 

 to be Mr. Seebohm's opinion also), that the specific name of candicans 

 having been so long in use for the white Jer-Falcon, and that of islandus 

 for the grey Iceland bu'd, it is now too late, and would be too incon- 

 venient, to correct an error which the usage of nearly a century may 

 reasonably be held to have condoned. 



t It is, however, quite possible that the Grey Falcons of Greenland 

 may sometimes migrate to Iceland, as those of the White race are known . 

 to do regularly every winter. 



