26 NORWEGIAN JER-FALCON. 



in winter, and then visit the other parts of Sweden 

 towards the south. The Falconers establish themselves 

 always on the Dovrefeld, but they only take young 

 birds of the year. In Holland, also, the Falconers 

 take from time to time specimens of the young bird; 

 from which we may conclude with Nilsson, that the 

 adults never go far from their habitual dwellings. 

 Very little is known about the habits and propagation 

 of this bird in its wild state. 



Mr Wolley, Jun., writing in 1856, says in his 

 "Catalogue of Eggs," sold by Mr. Stevens: — "Falco 

 gyr-falco of Schlegel is the true Gyr-Falcon at pres- 

 ent so little generally known in England, though 

 Schlegel says the young have occurred here, as they 

 do constantly in Holland. In immature plumage the 

 bird is scarcely to be distinguished from the immature 

 Icelanders. Whether to be considered a distinct species 

 or not, this Lapland, and, probably Siberian form, 

 must be carefully separated from the Greenland and 

 Iceland ones, which are so we known through the 

 researches of Mr. Hancock. Schlegel, writing three or 

 four years ago, says that nothing is known of its nidi- 

 iication; these eggs are therefore probably the first 

 that have been seen by naturalists. Mr. Wolley, in 

 1854 and 1855, had the pleasure of taking four nests 

 "with his own hands." It breeds in the most remote 

 districts, commencing whilst the winter snow is still 

 un diminished. The adult birds seem to confine them- 

 selves to the far north of the country, and they are 

 the only species or race of the Great Falcon which 

 occurs in Lapland." 



Writing again in 1856, the same able naturalist 

 further observes: — "In Scandinavia the forms found in 

 Greenland and Iceland never seem to occur. There 



