SAKER FALCON. 33 
M. Schlegel observes:—“‘In the works of antiquity, 
though the description given exactly corresponds with 
this species, we cannot say that any distinctive name 
was given to it. In the middle ages authors equally 
puzzled themselves and others about this bird, while 
the English naturalists, (none with the exception of 
Gould having seen the Saker in nature,) have only 
compiled what they have read of it in the works of 
their predecessors. Forster’s is the young of the White 
Jer-Falcon. Linnzus omits it altogether. Buffon’s figure 
appears to be the true Saker, painted from a specimen 
in the Royal Ménagerie; his description he takes from 
Belon. Pennant, Latham, Gmelin, and other naturalists 
to the end of the last century, have made their Saker 
from a melange of other birds described by their pre- 
decessors. Huber confounds his pretty little figure with 
the Lanner, by which name he designates it; so has 
Bechstem, having like Temminck and Naumann, 
received his specimens from the Vienna Museum, the 
only place where the true Saker then existed; they 
have described it as Lanner. The Saker is very rare 
now in collections, and it is not found, to my know- 
ledge, in the English or French Museums.” (Schlegel 
writes in 1844-53.) 
The Saker has been very well figured under the 
name of Lanner, by Gould, Naumann, and Susemihl. 
The word Saker or Sacer, used in Europe since 
the Emperor Frederick, is the Arabic name for Falcon; 
it must not be confounded with the Latin Sacer, 
which means “sacred,” for this mistake has caused the 
F. sacer to be confounded with the Sacred Falcon of 
the Egyptians, and has been one of the means of 
throwing confusion over its history. 
Several have been killed in Hungary, and young 
VOL. I, / F 
