34 BRITISH BIRDS. 
FALCO ASALON. 
MERLIN. 
(PLATE 4.) 
Accipiter litho-falco, Briss. Orn, i. p. 849 (1760). 
Accipiter esalon, Briss, Orn. i. p. 882 (1760); et auctorum plurimorum—( Gmelin), 
(Temminck), (Naumann), (Gould), (Yarrell), (Schlegel), (Newton), (Heuglin), 
(Dresser), &e. 
Accipiter merillus, Gerini, Orn. Meth. Dig. i. p. 51, pls. xviii., xix. (1767). 
Falco esalon (Briss.), Tunstall, Orn, Brit. p. 1 (1771). 
Falco regulus*, Pall. Leis, ii. Anhang, p. 707 (1773). 
Falco lithofalco (Briss.), Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 278 (1788). 
Falco smirillus, Savign. Otis. de V Egypte, p. 40 (1810). 
Falco sibiricus, Shaw, Gen. Zool. vii. pt. 1, p. 207 (1809). 
Falco cesius, Wolf, Taschenb. i. p. 60 (1810). 
Hypotriorchis wsalon (Briss.), Bote, Isis, 1828, p. 514. 
salon wesalon (Briss.), Kaup, Natiirl, Syst. p. 40 (1829). 
/Bsalon lithofalco (Briss.), Bonap. Rev. et May. de Zoot. 1854, p. 536. 
Ksalon regulus (Pall.), Blyth, Ibis, 1863, p. 9. 
Lithofalco salon (Driss.), Hume, Rough Notes, i. p. 89 (1869). 
The Merlin is one of the smallest of our native Falcons, yet possessed of 
marvellous rapidity of flight and courage. It is a bird, too, of no small 
amount of interest to the ornithologist, partly from the many conflicting 
statements regarding its habits, and partly owing to the wild grand nature 
of its haunts. The Merlin breeds throughout the mountainous districts 
of Great Britain, from the moorlands of Derbyshire northwards to the 
Outer Hebrides and the Shetlands, partly retiring to the lowlands and 
southern counties in winter, where a few pairs casually remain to breed. 
The same remarks apply to this species in Ireland. It breeds through- 
out the island in the mountain districts ; and numbers seek the lowlands 
in winter. This species is confined to the northerly portions of the Old 
World. It breeds throughout North Europe, Iceland, and the Faroes ; 
and a specimen was caught at sea by Mr. E. Whymper, on his voyage to 
Greenland, in May 1867, in lat. 57° 41! N. and long. 53° 23’ W., the 
* This is another instance of the folly of still adhering to the law of priority, which has 
done so much mischief to the study of birds. Sharpe, in his ‘ Catalogue of the Birds in the 
British Museum,’ adopts the name of F. regudus for the Merlin. Dresser was fortunately 
able to reinstate the name in all but universal use by discovering that Tunstall, in a mere 
catalogue of British birds (which had the good fortune to be published two years before 
Pallas wrote), had used Brisson’s name. The next ornithological revolutionist will 
undoubtedly reject both these names in favour of that of Gerini (which is unquestionably 
the earliest clearly defined name known at present), if in the meantime the law of priority 
does not meet with the fate it deserves. 
