18S5.J Stejneger. Analecta OrnitJiologica. 1 8^ 



tenentur Islandi." The two first, his No. 7 and No. 8, are evi- 

 dently only stages of the White Gyrfalcon ; No. 9 is an equally 

 undoubted description of the bird which we think Linnaeus 

 called rusticolus. It will thus be seen that Briinnich's species 

 F. islandus is a compound one, embracing both the white and 

 the dark species of Greenland and Iceland. The author who 

 next treated of these birds from autopsy was Otto Fabricius, 

 who in his celebrated 'Fauna Groenlandica,' published in 1780, 

 applied the name Falco islandus to the white species — "Falco 

 albus maculis cordatis nigricantibus, rectricibus albis nigro- 

 fasciatis" — to which he expressly refers Briinnich's No. 8 as the 

 young, and No. 7 as the old, while No. 9, the dark one, he with- 

 out hesitation quotes as a synonym of his F. rusticolus. Fab- 

 ricus, therefore, restricted the name islandus to the white 

 species. To us who accept Briinnich's names the species must 

 stand as 



Falco islandus Brunnich as restricted by Fabricius, 



while English authors — starting from the 12th edition — will 

 have to call it 



Falco islandus Fabricius, 1780. 



It is a matter of regret that Gmelin when editing the Systema 

 Naturalis eight years later overlooked Fabricius's* 'Fauna 

 Groenlandica,' thus committing the blunder of applying Briin- 

 nich's islandus to No. 9, the dark one, while he treated No. 7 

 and No. 8, respectively, as var. p albus and var. y maculatus, 

 names occurring four pages earlier than his Falco candicans and 

 F. candicans |J islandicus, which this arch-compiler named from 

 Brisson, not for a moment suspecting that he on an earlier page 

 had given them other names ! It would have been of very 

 little consequence what Gmelin did if later authors had not per- 

 petuated his blunder, though we may add at once that not all 

 have done so. It is, perhaps, not possible to get up a pluri- 

 morum auctoruih list, but the White Gyrfalcon {Falco candi- 

 cans plur. auct.) may still be quoted as Falco islandus 



t Seebohm, in his Hist. Brit. B. Eggs, quotes 'Faber' instead of Fabricius. Faber 

 and Fabricius were two different persons ! 



