I40 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



Lord Lilford is able to saj- : — " I am convinced that the Icelander, and the true 

 Gyrfalcon of Scandinavia, F. gyrfalco, are sufficiently distinct to be entitled to 

 rank as separate species, tliougli I am quite willing to admit that the immature 

 birds are so much alike that no falconer, however experienced, could pronounce a 

 decisive opinion upon their specific identity * * *. From a falconer's point of 

 view I have had but very slight acquaintance with the Iceland Falcon, and am 

 not inclined to rate her very highly, but it must be borne in mind that all the 

 birds of this species trained in this country have necessarily had the great disad- 

 vantage of a sea-passage, and in many instances have arrived so much damaged 

 in plumage that they could not be piit on wing till after the first moult ; all 

 falconers know how much Hawks suffer from a lengthened period of inactivity. 

 Our ancestors seem, however, to have esteemed the Icelanders highly ; there are 

 traditions of their being trained to take the Kite, and in more recent days a few 

 of these Falcons were flown at Herons with success in the Netherlands." In his 

 own experience Lord Lilford found the Iceland Falcon difficult to keep in health, 

 as the feet were apt to become diseased. In disposition the birds were "tameable 

 enough, but b}^ no means so hardy as might be expected from the climatic con- 

 ditions of the country of their origin." 



In its habits the Iceland Falcon greatly resembles the Peregrine, preying 

 upon Ptarmigan and sea- fowl, and placing its nest upon a cliff, often in an 

 inaccessible spot, building it with sticks and roots, and lining it with wool, and, 

 like the Peregrine, it will sometimes occupy an old nest of the Raven. The eggs, 

 four in. number, sometimes three, are laid in May, and are about equal in size to 

 those of the Greenland Falcon, varying much in colour. A clutch from Iceland 

 in the writer's cabinet are pinkish cream colour, sparingl}^ mottled with reddish 

 orange ; Avhile others closely resemble the typical &%<g of the Hobby. 



Dresser gives the following description of an adult male from Greenland : 

 forehead white, striated with blackish ; crown and nape dull white, the centres of 

 the feathers slaty black, the hind crown having these centres to the feathers ver}' 

 full}' developed ; back, scapulars, secondaries, and wing-coverts dark slate, with a 

 brownish tinge, more or less regularly barred with white, or white with a buff 

 tinge ; rump and upper tail coverts dull slate-blue, barred with blue-gre}' ; quills 

 slaty-blackish, marked on the outer web and barred on the inner web with buffy- 

 white ; tail ashy-grey, barred with dark blackish or brownisli-slate, and tipped 

 with white, the outer rectrices having a whiter ground coloiir than the central 

 ones ; sides of the head like the crown ; chin and upper throat white ; lower 

 throat streaked with blackish-brown ; rest of the under parts white, marked with 

 blackish-brown stripes which terminate in a drop-shaped spot ; lower flanks barred 



