318 



Notice of a Goshawk killed at Minto, and of some other 

 Raptorial Birds ; with some Observations on Falconry. 

 By Sir Walter Elliot, K.C.S.I., of Wolfelee. 



The occurrence of so rare a visitant as the Goshawk, 

 (Astur palumbarius), within the range of the Club, should 

 not be allowed to pass unnoticed, and I therefore beg to 

 record the capture of a specimen at Minto on the 13th 

 November, 1869. It was shot by the Hon. W. Fitzwilliam 

 Elliot, on Minto Crags, and proved to be a fine young male, 

 measuring 22 inches in length and 41 from tip to tip of the 

 extended wings* The skin was identified by Mr Turnbull, 

 of Glasgow, was stuffed, and is now preserved at Minto 

 House. The photographic portrait exhibited proves beyond 

 a doubt that it has been correctly named ; a point I am the 

 more anxious to establish because the Peregrine Falcon has 

 so often been mistaken for the Goshawk : although there 

 should be no difficulty in discriminating them ; the one being 

 a long winged, and the other a short winged hawk. Mac- 

 gillivray observes, that the Goshawk has been declared to 

 breed in Peeblesshire ; whereas it is in fact the Peregrine 

 which has several eyries in the Moffat hills, " whence," he 

 adds, " I cannot but believe that it must often have been the 

 bird so pleasingly introduced in old Scottish ballads as the 

 ' gay Goshawk.' "f Thomson, in his " Natural History of 

 Ireland," states that the Goshawk of more than one list is 

 similarly misnamed. "It is the only name applied to F. 

 peregrinus ," he says, " in ' Skimmins' History of Carrick- 

 fergus ' " ; and in his report of the Vertebrate Fauna of 

 Ireland, presented to the British Association in 1840, he 

 inserts Astur palumbarius with a mark of doubt, adding that 

 he had never seen a specimen. Yarrell quotes Selby to the 

 effect that he had never seen a recent specimen south of the 

 Tweed ; but that it was known to breed in the forest of 

 Rothiemurcus, in Scotland. 



In the edition of " YarrelPs Birds " now in course of pub- 

 lication by Professor Alfred Newton, of Cambridge, it is 

 asserted that, " in Northumberland, or the adjacent counties, 

 seven examples have been killed, according to various writers." 



* These measurements accord better with the size of the female, but I give 

 the statement as I received it. 



t " Hist. Br. Birds," by W. Macgillivray ; 1840. Vol. L, 48, note; also, 

 p. 182, and III., 303. 



