26 



marked with blackish brown stripes which terminate in a drop-shaped spot, lower flanks barred some- 

 what broadly, the upper flanks being marked with rather large heart-shaped spots ; under tail-coverts 

 rather irregularly barred ; bill bluish horn, darkest at the tip ; cere and legs yellow ; iris dark brown. 

 Total length about 21 , 5-22 inches, culmen 1/35, wing 14 - 5, tail 8 - 9, tarsus 2 - 3. 



Female. Resembles the male, but is larger, measuring— total length 24-24-5 inches, culmen l - 52, wing 16 - 3, 

 tail 9*95, tarsus 2'4. 



Young (Ofjord, Iceland). Differs from the young of Falco gyrfalco merely in having the head rather lighter 

 and lacking the blackish moustachial streak which the young of that species has ; and the young of the 

 present species appears always to have the back and tail less marked with lighter colour, the tail 

 especially being less barred than the young Jer Falcon. 



Nestling (Iceland). Covered with white down, slightly tinged with primrose. 



So far as I can ascertain, the present species has a more restricted range than either the Falco 

 gyrfalco or Falco candicans ; for it inhabits Iceland and Southern Greenland, whence it straggles 

 to Northern Europe ; and it is also met with on the east coast of North America. 



This species of northern Falcon has occurred, perhaps, somewhat less frequently in Great 

 Britain than the Greenland Falcon ; but as both have been recorded under the same name, it is 

 somewhat difficult to determine to which species the various recorded occurrences refer. Pro- 

 fessor Newton, who has probably gone more carefully into the question than any one I know, writes 

 (Yarr. Brit. B. ed. 4, i. p. 49) as follows : — "As regards England, Thompson quotes from a letter of 

 Mr. Hancock's the occurrence of a young bird at Billingham, on the North Tyne, in January 1845, 

 which was then in the collection of Mr. Charles Adamson, of Newcastle ; and this capture is also 

 recorded by Mr. Bold in the ' Zoologist ' for that year. The same letter also notices an Iceland 

 Falcon, in its first plumage, killed at Normanby, near Guisborough, in Yorkshire, in March 1837, 

 of which a brief description by the late Mr. Hogg appeared in the volume of the useful periodical 

 just mentioned. Both these birds are now in Mr. Hancock's collection. Mr. Borrer possesses an 

 adult Iceland Falcon shot at Mayfield, in Sussex, in January 1845. These, with an immature 

 specimen in the Norwich Museum, killed at Inverbroome, in Ross-shire, 1851 — probably one of 

 those already included by Mr. Gray — and a young male from Scotland, in the possession of 

 Mr. Gurney, jun., are all the British examples which at the present time can be, with any 

 amount of certainty, referred to the Iceland Falcon." To this I may add that Mr. A. Clapham 

 informs me that he possesses a male killed on Filey Brigg, and a young female shot at Poppleton, 

 near York; and I am indebted to Mr. Cecil Smith for the following note: — " I do not know of 

 the occurrence of either this or the Greenland Falcon in Somerset. In the Channel Islands it 

 may have occurred more than once, as Professor Ansted, in his list of Channel-Island birds, 

 mentions the Gyr Falcon as having occurred in Guernsey, but does not say to which of the three 

 species formerly included under the general name Gyr Falcon he alludes ; nor does he give any 

 description, or state where the bird is now to be seen. Mr. Couch, the bird-stuffer in Guernsey, 

 however, recorded in the 'Zoologist' for 1876 the fact of either an Iceland or Greenland Falcon 

 having been shot by the gamekeeper at the little island of Herm on the 11th of April of that 

 year. As I was in Guernsey in the June following I saw and obtained the bird. It is an 



