32 SAKER FALCON. 
THE Saker Falcon was confounded from the time of 
Temminck’s first edition of the ““Manuel d’Ornithologie,” 
up to the publication of Schlegel’s “Revue,” in 1844, 
with the Falco lanarius of .Linneus; and it is still 
named as such in collections. M. Schlegel has, however, 
restored the ancient name of Le sacre to the bird 
described as such by Gessner, Belon, and Buffon, and 
I think he has done good service to natural science 
by his researches on the subject; imasmuch as the Lanner 
Falcon, hitherto confounded with almost every other 
member of its family, will now take its proper place, 
and the distinction between it and the Saker, so ably 
drawn by M. Schlegel, and which in both instances we 
shall give almost in that naturalist’s own words, must 
for the future be without doubt. 
In the extracts from Schlegel’s great work on Falconry, 
which we shall make about this rare bird, that natu- 
ralist says, “it 1s not found, to my knowledge, in any 
of the English or French Museums.” There is, however, 
now a living specimen of this bird in the Gardens of 
the Zoological Society, to which my attention was drawn 
by Mr. Gurney. “A living specimen of this bird from 
Turkey, now in the Gardens of the Zoological Society, 
has a different plumage from any other specimens I 
have seen. ‘This individual is cross-barred like a female 
merlin.” In a subsequent note Mr. Gurney says, that 
he has seen another specimen in the collection of the 
East India Company, in which the plumage is the 
same as in the above bird, namely, haying distinct, 
brown, transverse markings all across the back, shoulders, 
and wing coverts. Mr. Gurney considers these are the 
markings of adult age, as the specimen in the Zoological 
Gardens, (labelled F. lanarius, Linneus,) had few, if 
any, of them when first sent there. 
