186 FALCO LABRADORUS. 



roundish warm buff spots ; bill bluish, becoming black on the ridge and towards the tip ; 

 legs lead-blue, soles yellowish; iris dark brown. Total length about 24 inches, culmen To, 

 Aving 15-7, tail 10, tarsus 2"8, middle toe (with claw) 3"25j middle claw 1. 

 Specimen B (Labrador). — Upper parts deep clear brown, with a slight slate-tinge when held in 

 certain lights ; nuchal feathers edged with buffy white, but all the rest of the upper parts 

 uniform in colour, except that the feathers on the crown and some on the wing-coverts have 

 a scarcely perceptible lighter margin ; quills of a darker brown than the rest of the upper 

 parts, and with narrow light tips, inner webs dark like the outer ones, and not marked with 

 a lighter colour as in the other Jerfalcons ; under wing-coverts marked with circular light 

 buff spots, and washed with slaty plumbeous ; tail deep brown, with a few obsolete markings 

 on the central rectrices and the outer webs of the remaining feathers ; but the inner webs of 

 these latter are marked with yellowish buff or buflFy white spots, forming thirteen transverse 

 bars ; tail narrowly tipped with buffy white ; underparts blackish clove-brown, the tibise 

 slightly washed with plumbeous ; feathers on the underparts laterally edged with buffy white, 

 which on the flanks, tibiae, and under tail-coverts takes the forai of roundish spots ; throat 

 most conspicuously marked with white, the markings on the rest of the underparts being far 

 less in amount as compared with the dark colour. Culmen 1'45 inch, ^nng 15"1, tail 10, 

 tarsus 2'9, middle toe with claw 3'25, middle claw 1. 



Specimen C {young, Labrador) . — Resembles the bird last described, but has the upper parts lighter 

 and browner, and the feathers on the back and wing- coverts have lighter margins ; the head 

 is also much marked with buffy white ; wings as in specimen B, but lighter and the inner 

 webs slightly marbled with buff; tail paler than in specimen B, but more uniform in 

 colour, the central rectrices being uniform unspotted ; underparts as in specimen B, but 

 paler, more marked with buffy white, the throat being white streaked with dark brown. 

 Culmen 1"45 inch, wing 16'2, tail 10'3, tarsus 2'9, middle toe with claw 3'2, middle claw 1. 



Obs. — At the first glance the young bird is not unlike a very dark young Iceland Falcon ; but, 

 irrespective of other differences, the best character, perhaps, by which it may be distinguished is the 

 absence of light bars on the inner webs of the primaries, these being only slightly marbled with buff. 

 Unfortunately the above-described specimens were not sexed ; but the measm'cments would tend to 

 show that specimen C and probably also A are females, and specimen B a male. 



It is somewhat remarkable, although the Raptores have been so frequently 

 and carefully worked out, and the Jerfalcon group more especially have been 

 treated of by various ornithological authors, that so distinct a bird as the 

 Labrador Jerfalcon should only lately have been acknowledged as being a 

 good species. Though figured by Audubon in 1831, and by him considered 

 distinct, yet he discarded the specific name he had proposed, and in his 



