140 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 
Lord Lilford is able to say:—‘‘I am convinced that the Icelander, and the true 
Gyrfalcon of Scandinavia, / gyvfalco, are sufficiently distinct to be entitled to 
rank as separate species, though 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 put 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 by 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, sparingly mottled with reddish 
orange; while others closely resemble the typical egg 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 very 
fully 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 aud upper tail coverts dull slate-blue, barred with blue-grey; 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 brownish-slate, and tipped 
with white, the outer rectrices having a whiter ground colour 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 
