514 NOTES ON SOME OF THE 



mens of both, in the Museum of the Boston Society of 

 Natural History and elsewhere, has led me to believe is 

 actually the fact. Sabine, so long ago as 1819, I think has 

 fully shown this in his remarks on Falco Islandicus in his 

 Memoir on the Birds of Greenland.* According to the 

 late lamented Mr. Cassin, sacer is the specific name which 

 has priority for this species, f 



DUCK HAWK. Falco peregrinus Linn. (Falco anatum 

 Bon., and F. nigriceps Cass). I stated in my Catalogue, 

 published five years since, that the eggs and the young of 

 this species had been taken at different times from Mount 

 Tom, and that the young had also been obtained from Tal- 

 cott Mountain in Connecticut. A few months later I had the 

 pleasure of giving a full account of the eyrie on Mount Tom, 

 with a detailed description of the eggs, and some general 

 remarks on the distribution of this interesting species in the 

 breeding season, f These eggs were the first eggs of the 

 Duck Hawk known to naturalists to have been obtained in 

 the United States, the previous most southern locality whence 

 they had been taken being Labrador ; but the species had 

 previously been observed in the breeding season by Dr. S. 

 S. Haldeman as far south as Harper's Ferry, Virginia. One 

 or more pairs of these birds have been seen about Mounts 

 Tom and Holyoke every season since the first discovery of 

 the eggs at the former locality in 1864. Mr. C. W. Bennett, 

 of Holyoke, their discoverer, has since carefully watched 

 them, and his frequent laborious searches for their nest have 

 been well rewarded. In 1866 he took a second set of eggs, 

 three in number, from the eyrie previously occupied. In 

 1867 the male bird was killed late in April, and this appar- 

 ently prevented their breeding there that year, as they prob- 

 ably otherwise would have done. At least no nest was that 



* Transact. London Linn. Soc., Vol. xx, p. 528. 



t See Dr. Coues' List of the Birds of New England, Proceedings of the Essex Insti- 

 tute, Vol. v, p. 254. 

 JSee Proceedings Essex Institute, Vol. iv, p. 153. 



