Capt. Sabine's Memoir on the Birds of Greenland, ^-c. 529 



The progress of this bird from youth, when it is quite brown, to 

 the ahuost perfect whiteness of its maturity, forms a succession of 

 changes in which each individual feather gradually loses a portion 

 of its brown as the white edging on the margin increases in breadth 

 from year to year ; such has been the cause of the variety of 

 synonyms which have been referred to. 



2. Falco Peregrinus. Peregrine Falcon. 



F. Peregrinus. Gmel.\. 272. Lath. Ind. Orn\. 33. Temm. 34. — Peregrine Falcon. Br. 

 Zool. i. 218. jdrcl. Zool. ii. 202. Lath. Syn. i. 73. 4 Supp. 18. MoiU. Diet. Sf Supp. 

 — F. Communis. Gmel. \. 270. Lath. Ind. Orn. i. 30. — Common Falcon. Lath. 

 Syn. i.65. — Lanner. Br. Zool. i. 233. — Great-footed Hawk. Wil. Am. Orn. ix. 120. 



Killed in the third week of September in lat. 66P N. and long. 

 58" W., and therefore most probably from America. Fabricius 

 does not mention this bird as an inhabitant of Greenland. The 

 specimen from which the note is taken was a young bird, and re- 

 mained for some hours about the ship in company with three 

 others. I have not hesitated to add the synonym of the F. com- 

 munis to the other received ones of this species ; the French spe- 

 cimens under that name fully proving the identity. The broad 

 black line or patch, extending from the eye down to the throat, 

 is a distinguishing mark of this bird, and of the Falco Subbiiteo, 

 or Hobby, in the various states of their plumage; the difference 

 in size of the two species will always prevent their being con- 

 founded. 



I suspect that the Falco Lannarius of Brvinnich is a Merlin, and 

 therefore have not referred to it. The Lanner of the British 

 Zoology is a young Peregrine Falcon ; but the J^. Lannarius of 

 Linneus and Gmelin, of Latham and others, as well as the Lanner 

 of the Arctic Zoology and of Latham's Synopsis, is a distinct spe- 

 cies (as I am informed by M. Temminck) common in Russia, Po- 

 land, and Hungary, to which also the F. Stellaris and Starry Fal- 

 con of authors must be referred, being the same bird in a younger 



state. 



