In North-West Canada. 129 



four eggs early in May. One clutch of three eggs taken near 

 Tornea, Lapland, May 4th, 1889, are very handsome. The 

 ground colour is light red, mottled and clouded over with 

 reddish brown. They measure 2.25x1.75, 2.22x1.75 and 

 2.20x1.72. There are three species of gyr falcon that are 

 found both in Europe and America : The white or Greenland 

 gyr falcon, the gray or Iceland gyr falcon, and the gyr falcon. 

 There has always been some confusion about the gyr falcons 

 on account of their different stages of plumage, but the fore- 

 going three species are now well-established. 



The Iceland gyr falcon is a handsome bird and lays hand- 

 some eggs, as I can testify by a fine series of thirty-six eggs 

 now before me, which is probably the largest series ever 

 brought together ; all these eggs are from Iceland, where the 

 birds breed among the crags of the sea-coast. The late W. 

 C. Flint, of San Francisco, an enthusiastic oologist, had also a 

 nice series of sets of the Iceland falcon, which I obtained for 

 him. The series on the table before me were selected from 

 close upon fifty specimens that have been collected in Iceland 

 this last six years. The eggs of this bird are the most beauti- 

 ful of all the falcons, and it is needless to say I am proud of my 

 series. The number of eggs laid by this species is usually 

 three or four ; I have four clutches of four eggs, six clutches 

 of three eggs, and one clutch of two eggs. The eggs vary 

 greatly even from the same nest, and are not unlike peregrine 

 falcon's eggs in style of colouring, but, of course, are twice as 

 large. In some specimens the ground colour is cinnamon or 

 buff, distinctly spotted and blotched with deeper cinnamon 

 brown ; in others the pale ground colour is almost concealed 

 with speckles of reddish-1 )rown all over the eggs ; then, again, 

 some are an uniform cinnamon or brick-red colour without 

 any spots whatever, and the darker specimens have the ground 

 colour, reddish-brown, speckled, mottled and clouded oveV with 

 rich reddish-brown, and these dark varieties resemble some 

 specimens of the Egyptian vulture and Caracara eagle. Mr. 

 Ridgway, in his manual of North-American birds, gives the 

 size of the eggs of the gray gyr falcon as 3.87x1.72 : this is 

 I 



