802 SAGE-COCK SAKER 



represents an earlier and more generalized form from which both 

 may have sprung. That point must be left to future examination 

 (which may be hoped for before extirpation has done its work), mean- 

 while it is enough to remark that the habits, as described by Sir W. 

 Buller (B. New Zeal ed. 2, i. pp. 18-20), of the Saddle-back of New 

 Zealand shew little trace of agreement with those of either of the 

 Families to which it has been assigned, and that the bird derives 

 its name from the distribution of its strongly-contrasted colours, 

 black and ferruginous, of which the latter covers the shoulders 

 and back in a way suggestive of saddle-flaps. A second species 

 described by Sir Walter in 1865 (Essay Orn. N. Z. p. 10), under 

 the name of 0. cinereus, was subsequently repudiated by him 

 (B. N. Z. ed. 1, p. 149), but in 1888 was restored (op. cit. ed. 2, 

 i. p. 21). It is said to be known as the Jack-bird. 



SAGE-COCK, Centrocercus urophasianus (GROUSE, p. 394), the 

 " sage " being an Artemisia. 



SAINT CUTHBERT'S DUCK, a local name of the EIDER 

 (p. 192). 



SAKER, Fr. Sacre said to be from the Arabic Saqr ( Falcon) 

 and to have no connexion, as was once thought, with the Latin Sacer, 

 a translation of itpa% ( = Hawk) a species of FALCON which was 

 allowed to drop almost out of knowledge with the neglect of 

 Falconry, so that though some of the older systematists recognized a 

 Falco sacer, 1 they had but little acquaintance with it, and mostly 

 described it at second hand. It had been especially confounded 

 with the LANNER, and figured under that name in the works of 

 Naumann and Gould. To Schlegel, in 1844 (Rev. Grit. pp. ii. 9 ; 

 TraiU de la Fauconnerie, pp. 17-19, pi.), is due the disentangle- 

 ment of the complication, and the placing of the species on a sound 

 base, yet doubt may still be entertained as to the scientific name it 

 should bear. 2 In Europe it inhabits only the south-eastern portion, 

 beginning with Bohemia, 3 but in North Africa it ranges from 



1 The F. sacer of J. R. Forster (Phil. Trans. Ixii. p. 383) was evidently the 

 young of the American GOSHAWK, and neither (as he thought) the Sacre of 

 Brisson and Buffon, nor (as has lately been supposed) the young of F. gyrfalco. 

 Schlegel took it to be the young of F. candicans, which he at that time believed 

 to be brown. 



2 It cannot be F. sacer, Gmelin 1788, since that was anticipated by Forster 

 in 1772 (see preceding note). According to most synonymies, F. cherrug, J. E. 

 Gray (III. Ind. Zool. pi. 25), is next in point of time, and perhaps should stand. 

 It is certainly the F. cyanopus of Thienemann (Rhea, pp. 39, note, and 62, pis. i. 

 and ii.) in 1846-49. 



3 Messrs. Salvin and Brodrick (Falconry in the British Islands, p. 96) say 

 that in 1848 Mr. A. C. Cochrane obtained breeding birds in Hungary, and twelve 

 years later Mr. Hudleston took a nest in the Dobrudska (Ibis, 1860, p. 377, 

 pi. xii. fig. 1). 



