136 British Birds with their Nests and Eggs. 



rufous brown, fading off to lighter; tail broAvn, tipjaed with white, with numerous 

 narrow darker wavy bands ; primaries blackish brown. 



Seebohm considers that there are two forms of the Hone3'-Buzzard, a darker 

 and a lighter, with intermediate forms which are much spotted ; while Dresser 

 believes that, in the 3'ounger birds, there is a tendency towards albinism. As in 

 most of the Buzzards and Eagles there is a slight gloss upon the plumage. 

 Macgillivra}- terms the Hone3^-Buzzard " the Brown Bee-Hawk." 



Fami/v—FAL CONID^. 



Greenland Falcon. 



Falco candicans, GjiEL. 



WITH this powerful and beautiful bird, the great White Falcon of the Polar 

 regions, the true Falcons are now reached, of which the well-known 

 Peregrine is regarded as the type ; thej^ are birds of great courage, swift and 

 strong on wing ; greatly valued throughout the world for the assistance which, 

 when trained, ih&y can render to sport, and to be distinguished by the projecting 

 tooth on the cutting edge of their upper mandibles ; by their flight feathers — the 

 first and third being equal in length, while the second is the longest ; b}^ their 

 irides being hazel, instead of the 3'elloAV of the less noble Hawks ; while some of 

 them, the Peregrine, Hobb3% and Merlin, have a characteristic line of black feathers 

 extending do^^oiwards on either side from the gape, termed b3^ falconers the 

 moustache. 



The Greenland Falcon is the whitest of the four species of G3'rfalcon now 

 recognized by ornithologists, inhabiting the northern-most parts of the old and 

 new worlds, never nesting south of the Arctic circle. It is only hy some accident, 

 when following the autumnal migrations of wild fowl, that it comes so far south 

 as the southern shores of the British Isles. Two have occurred in Cornwall; one 



