Falco Sacer, Forster. 

 FALCO CANDICANS, Gmelin. 



GYR FALCON; "SPECKLED PARTRIDGE HAWK." 

 PLATE III. 



Through the very great kindness of the Rev. Duncan Ander- 

 son of Spruce CHff, Levis, Quebec, I am enabled herewith to 

 present an accurate photograph of the rarest of all " Our Birds 

 of Prey," the Gyr-Falcon of northern North America ; or the 

 " Speckled Hawk " of the Hudson's Bay Territories. This speci- 

 men was shot upon a flagstaff at the " Bay of Seven Islands," 

 about 350 miles below Quebec, during the month of May 1865. 

 It was skinned by a squaw and sent to Dr. Russell of Quebec, 

 who subsequently presented it to Mr. Anderson, in whose collec- 

 tion it yet remains. The skin as an ornithological specimen was 

 in a miserable condition. No antiseptic whatever had been used, 

 while the skull bones had been completely removed, and in fact 

 every bone that should have been left in. The bird had conse- 

 quently to be set up entirely by eye-measurement, and the total 

 length given in the appended description of it ma)' not therefore 

 be exactly correct. The sex and the color of the eyes could not 

 be ascertained. Mr. Anderson says, "No other bird of this 

 species has been seen in the neighborhood of Quebec, nor am I 

 aware that it is represented in any of our museums or private 

 collections." Two specimens, however, in the dark stage — a 

 young male and an old female — corresponding to Audubon's F. 

 labradoi-a — were taken near Montreal, and are now in the Museum 

 of Nat. Hist, in this city. Mr. Anderson further writes me, "The 

 individual who shot my specimen, a keen observant hunter, who 

 has resided for upwards of forty years on the north shore of the 

 St. Lawrence, states that he has never seen during that time but 

 one other bird of the same kind. As to my own experience, I 

 have to acknowledge that many weeks of patient wandering 

 among the rocks of the North .Shore have failed to procure me 

 even a passing glimpse of this " rai'a avis." 



c 



