FALCON 235 
F 
FALCON (Latin, Falco ;1 French, Faucon ; Teutonic, Falk or 
Valken), a word now restricted to the high-couraged and long-winged 
Birds-of-Prey which take their quarry as it moves; but formerly it 
had a very different meaning, being by the naturalists of the last 
and even of the present century extended toa great number of 
birds comprised in the genus Valco of Linnzus and writers of his 
day,” while, on the other hand, by falconers, it was, and still is, 
technically limited to the female of the birds employed by them in 
their vocation, whether “‘long-winged ” and therefore ‘ noble,” or 
“ short-winged ” and “ ignoble.” 
According to modern usage, the majority of the Falcons, in the 
sense first given, may be separated into jive very distinct groups : 
—(1) the Falcons pure and simple (Falco proper); (2) the large 
northern Falcons (Hierofalco, Cuvier) ; (3) the “ Desert Falcons” 
(Gennea, Kaup) ; (4) the MERLINS (salon, Kaup) ; and (5) the 
Hoxgsres (Hypotriorchis, Boie). The precise order in which these 
should be ranked need not concern us here, but it must be mentioned 
that a sixth group, the KesTreLs (Z%innunculus, Vieillot), is often 
added to them. This, however, appears to be justifiably reckoned 
a distinct genus, and its consideration may for the present be de- 
ferred. 
The typical Falcon is by common consent allowed to be that 
cosmopolitan species to which unfortunately the English epithet 
“peregrine ” (2.¢. strange or wandering) has been attached. It is the 
Falco peregrinus of Tunstall (1771) and of most recent ornithologists, 
though some® prefer the specific name communis applied by J. F. 
Gmelin a few years later (1788) to a bird which, if his diagnosis 
be correct, could not have been a true Falcon at all, since it had 
yellow irides—a colour never met with in the eyes of any bird now 
1 The earliest use of this word, which is unknown to classical writers, is 
said to be by Servius Honoratus (circa 390-480 a.p.) in his notes on din. 
lib. x. vers. 145. It seems possibly to be the Latinized form of the Teutonic 
Falk, though falz is commonly accounted its root. (falco, a54man's Name, was in earlier use), 
2 The nomenclature of nearly all the older writers on this point is extremely 
confused, and the attempt to unravel it would hardly repay the trouble, and 
would undoubtedly occupy more space than could here be allowed. What many 
of them, even so lately as Pennant’s time, termed the ‘‘ Gentle Falcon” is cer- 
tainly the bird we now call the Gos-Hawk (i.e. Goose-Hawk), which name itself 
may have been transferred to the Astur palumbarius of modern ornithologists, 
from one of the long-winged Birds-of-Prey. 
3 Among them Dr. Sharpe, who, in the first volume of the Catalogue of the 
Birds in the British Museum, has besides rejected much of the evidence that the 
experience of those who have devoted years of study to the Falcons has supplied. 
