198 NOTES ON THE 
FALCO RUSTICOLUS GYRFALCO (1.). (354a.) 
GYRFALCON. 
In the winter of 1874, I secured a straggler from its habitat 
in its best winter plumage, and after satisfying myself of its 
identity, notified the ornithologist of the Smithsonian of my 
find, and at his request loaned him my specimen, which how- 
ever, | had had mounted for the museum of the Minnesota 
Accademy of Natural Sciences, of which I had the honor to be 
president at the time. My diagnosis was endorsed, and its 
variety given as Labradora, with the promise of having the 
proof-sheet sent me of its notice in the large work on the 
birds of North America, then nearly ready to publish. I 
received the proof in due time, giving it as above, with the 
additional statement that it was the first instance of its collec- 
tion within the United States, but I was not a little surprised 
on reading the work afterwards, to find the proof-sheet wanting 
in the text, and the species referred to as occasionally being 
found within the United States. A notice of the reasons for 
the change in the advanced sheets would have been the least 
that the common amenities of life would have called for. I 
mention the circumstance that others may not be foolish enough 
to allow their beautifully mounted birds to be dismounted, 
gutted, and have their plumage clawed over for several months, 
after which re-stuffed, and sent back looking as if it was the 
remains of an individual that had been through a picking- 
machine and left in a dirty garret for preservation. If the 
pinch lay in not having the first and only specimen of ‘‘Falco 
Gyrfalco, variety Labradora,” as given in the advanced sheet, 
presented to the Institution, I can only say that having been 
given to the Academy, I no longer had the right to so dispose 
of it. 
The winter of 1874 will be remembered asone of the severest 
in the history of the great Northwest, and the specimen was 
doubtless driven south for food. During the same winter the 
Goshawks in mature plumage were often met with in the,-pine 
forests of northeast Minnesota. One of the finest specimens 
of the mature male of this fine hawk was found starved and 
frozen in a woodpile, and another was brought to me alive that 
had followed a hen into a farmer’s kitchen in the timberland, 
where it was captured in magnificent plumage, and many more 
of the young of the year were obtained by grouse hunters in the 
deciduous forests. 
