The Zoologist— November, 18G7. 9G7 



to be trusted in living examples which have been kept long in cap- 

 tivity; for confinement, and perhaps the want of perfectly fresh food, 

 seems often to interfere with the natural development of colour in 

 those parts. To distinguish between the two forms can scarcely be 

 said to be more difficult. In the first place, the bills and claws of the 

 Greenland bird, seem to be in life always white, or nearly so, while in 

 the Iceland the same parts are more or less dusky horn-colour. It 

 occasionally happens however that, on a cursory inspection of dried 

 specimens of the Greenland race, these organs present a somewhat 

 dark appearance, but this will be found on closer inspection to be 

 merely the effect of extravasated blood. Another character is, that 

 though there is very considerable variation between individual birds of 

 either form, it will always be found that in the Greenland falcon, the 

 white is, as it were, the ground colour of each feather on which the 

 dark marking is displayed, whereas in the Icelander the ground is dark 

 with a light marking thereon. In other words, in the Greenland bird 

 at all ages the prevailing hue is white, while in the Icelander it is dark, 

 being brown or gray, according as the specimen is young or old." 

 Amongst the smaller falcons and hawks there are no two species, we 

 imagine, which could by any means be confounded, at all events in the 

 adult state, and we therefore pass on to the owls. Here again on 

 reviewing the British species of this genus it appears that there is but 

 one about which any remarks need be offered. 



Little Owl. — The little owl, which is occasionally seen in England, 

 is sometimes confounded with the Swedish little owl, which has not 

 been found in this country. The latter has its toes thickly covered 

 with downy hair-like feathers even to the claws, and the tail extends 

 nearly an inch and a half beyond the closed wings, whereas in the 

 British bird it is scarcely longer than the wings themselves ; moreover, 

 in the little owl of Britain, the first wing-feather is equal in length to 

 the sixth, the second like the fifth, the third longest. In the Swedish 

 little owl, the first is like the ninth, the second like the- sixth, the third 

 and fourth the longest. 



Passing on to the Insessores we come to a consideration of the 

 genera Sylvia and Salicaria, and perhaps no birds are more generally 

 overlooked, or, when noticed, so frequently confounded as some species 

 in these two geuera, as, for instance, Sylvia cinerea and curruca ; 

 Salicaria arundinacea, phragmitis, aquatica, palustris. Only within 

 the past year has one of these (S. aquatica) been made known as a 

 British bird, although it had been obtained in this country more than 



