40 FALCONUm 



In a Catalogue of the Birds of Norfolk and Suffolk, 

 by Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear, published in the fifteenth 

 volume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society, men- 

 tion is made of a specimen that was shot on Bungay 

 Common. By the kindness of Mr. Allis of York, I have 

 learned that a very fine adult specimen was shot within a 

 few miles of that city on the 15th March, 1837. One of 

 the specimens now in the Museum of Newcastle-upon- 

 Tyne was killed in Northumberland ; in the month of 

 January of the year 1845, an Iceland Falcon was shot near 

 the North Tyne. Pennant possessed one that was shot 

 near Aberdeen. Mr. Low, in his Fauna of Orkney, con- 

 sidered the Gyr-Falcon as only an occasional visitor : Mr. 

 Bullock, when he visited the Orkneys, saw one sitting on 

 a stone wall in the island of Stronsa ; but its appearance 

 has not been observed by more recent Ornithologists. 

 As before mentioned, its true habitat appears to be in 

 higher northern latitudes, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, 

 Siberia, Russia, and occasionally the north of Germany ; 

 but apparently in no country more plentiful than in North 

 America. Sir John Richardson says, " We saw it often 

 during our journeys over the Barren Grounds, where its 

 habitual prey is the Ptarmigan, but where it also destroys 

 Plover, Ducks, and Geese." 



Major Sabine, in his Memoir on the Birds of Greenland, 

 says, " The progress of this bird from youth, when it is 

 quite brown, to the almost perfect whiteness of its matu- 

 rity, forms a succession of changes in which each indi- 

 vidual feather gradually loses a portion of its brown co- 

 lour as the white edging on the margin increases in breadth 

 from year to year." Sir John Richardson also, who has 

 had favourable opportunities for observing this species at 

 different ages, says, " The young Gyr-Falcons show little 

 white on their plumage, being mostly of a dull brown co- 



