* 



GREAT-FOOTED HAWK. 33 



swamps wherein it is said to breed. We have therefore taken 

 the liberty of changing its English name for one which will at 

 once express a characteristic designation, or which will indi- 

 cate the species without the labour of investigation. * 



" This species," says Pennant, " breeds on the rocks of Llan- 

 didno, in Caernarvonshire, Wales. That promontory has been 

 long famed for producing a generous kind, as appears by a let- 

 ter extant in Gloddaeth library, from the lord treasurer Bur- 

 leigh to an ancestor of Sir Roger Mostyn, in which his lord- 

 ship thanks him for a present of a fine cast of hawks taken on 

 those rocks, which belong to the family. They are also very 

 common in the north of Scotland; and are sometimes trained 

 for falconry by some few gentlemen who still take delight in 

 this amusement in that part of Great Britain. Their flight is 

 amazing rapid; one that was reclaimed by a gentleman in the 

 Shire of Angus, a county on the east side of Scotland, eloped 

 from its master with two heavy bells attached to each foot, on 

 the twenty-fourth of September, 1772, and was killed in the 

 morning of the twenty-sixth, near Mostyn, Flintshire."! 



The same naturalist, in another place, observes, that " the. 

 American species is larger than the European. They are 

 subject to vary. The Black Falcon, and the Spotted Falcon, 

 of Edwards, are of this kind; each preserves a specific mark, 

 in the black stroke which drops from beneath the eyes, down 

 towards the neck. 



" Inhabits different parts of North America, from Hudson's 

 Bay as low as Carolina. In Asia, is found on the highest parts 

 of the Uralian and Siberian chain. Wanders in summer to the 

 very Arctic circle. Is common in Kamtschatka. " 



* " Specific names, to be perfect, ought to express some peculiarity, com- 

 mon to no other of the genus." Am. Orn. i, p. 65. 



f British Zoology. 



J If we were to adopt the mode of philosophising of the Count deBuffbn, 

 we should infer that the European species is a variety of our more generous 

 nice, degenerated by the influence of food and climate! Arctic Zoology. 



VOL. I. Gg 



