34 BRITISH BIRDS. 



FALCO ^ESALON. 

 MERLIN. 



(PLATE 4.) 



Accipiter litho-falco, Briss. Orn. i. p. 349 (1760). 



Accipiter sesal on, Briss. Orn. i.p.'382 (1760); et auctorum plurimorum (Gmelin), 



(Temminck), (Naumann), (Gould), (Tan-ell), (Schlegel), (Newton), (Heuylin), 



(Dresser), &c. 



Accipiter merillus, Gerini, Orn. Meth. l)uj. i. p. 51, pis. xviii., xix. (1767). 

 Falco aesalon (Briss.), Tunstall, Orn. Brit. p. 1 (1771). 

 Falco regulus*, Pall. Reis. ii. Auhang, p. 707 (1773). 

 Falco lithofalco (Briss.), Gmel. Si/st. Nat. i. p. 278 (1788). 

 Falco suiirillus, Savign. Ois. de VEyypte, p. 40 (1810). 

 Falco sibiricus, Shaw, Gen. Zool. vii. pt. 1, p. 207 (1809). 

 Falco caesius, Wolf, Taschenb. i. p. 60 (1810). 

 Hypotriorchis fesalon (Briss.), Boie, Isis, 1828, p. 314. 

 ^Esalon sesalon (Briss.), Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 40 (1829). 

 ^Esalon litliofalco (Bnss.), Bonap. Rev. et May. de Zool. 1854, p. 536. 

 J^salon regains (Pall.), Blytli, Ibis, 1863, p. 9. 

 Lithofalco sesalon (Briss.), Hume, Rouyh Notes, i. p. 89 (1869). 



The Merlin is one of the smallest of our native Falcons, yet possessed of 

 marvellous rapidity of flight and courage. It is a bird, too, of 110 small 

 amount of interest to the ornithologist, partly from the many conflicting 

 statements regarding its habits, and partly owing to the wild grand nature 

 of its haunts. The Merlin breeds throughout the mountainous districts 

 of Great Britain, from the moorlands of Derbyshire northwards to the 

 Outer Hebrides and the Shetlands, partly retiring to the lowlands and 

 southern counties in winter, where a few pairs casually remain to breed. 



The same remarks apply to this species in Ireland. It breeds through- 

 out the island in the mountain districts ; and numbers seek the lowlands 

 in winter. This species is confined to the northerly portions of the Old 

 World. It breeds throughout North Europe, Iceland, and the Faroes ; 

 and a specimen was caught at sea by Mr. E. Whymper, on his voyage to 

 Greenland, in May 1867, in lat. 57 41' N. and long. 53 23' W., the 



* This is another instance of the folly of still adhering to the law of priority, which has 

 done so much mischief to the study of birds. Sharpe, in his ' Catalogue of the Birds in the 

 British Museum,' adopts the name of F. regulus for the Merlin. Dresser was fortunately 

 able to reinstate the name in all but universal use by discovering that Tunstall, in a mere 

 catalogue of British birds (which had the good fortune to be published two years before 

 Pallas wrote), had used Brisson's name. The next ornithological revolutionist will 

 undoubtedly reject both these names in favour of that of Gerini (which is unquestionably 

 the earliest clearly denned name known at present), if in the meantime the law of priority 

 does not meet with the fate it deserves. 



