GYR-FALCON. 



FALCO GYRFALCO, Linn. 



Falco gyrfalco, Linn. S. N. i. p. 130 (1766) ; Naum. xiii. 

 p. 22; Yarr. ed. 4, i. pp. 36, 46; Dresser, vi. p. 15. 



Gerfaut de Norvege, French ; Gierfalke, German ; Gerifdlte, 

 Spanish. 



I can only discover two records of the occurrence of 

 this Scandinavian Falcon in our country, viz. one 

 killed in Sussex in 1845, now in the collection of 

 Mr. W. Borrer, who tells us in his ' Birds of Sussex ' 

 (1891) that his specimen, which he at first considered 

 as an Iceland Falcon, was identified as an adult of the 

 present species by the late Mr. John Henry Gurney. 

 Mr. Borrer, in the work to which 1 have just referred, 

 gives an excellent figure of this Falcon, which proves, 

 were any proof needed, the correctness of Mr. Gurney 's 

 identification. The other occurrence to which I have 

 alluded is recorded by Mr. H. Seebohm, ' British Birds,' 

 vol. i. p. 19 (1883), who states that an immature 

 example of the " Norwegian form of Jer-Falcon " was 

 shot at Orford, in Suffolk, in the act of devouring a 

 hen, on October 14th, 1867, and was, at the time of 

 Mr. Seebohm's writing, in the possession of Mr. Ed. 

 Hunt, of Pimlico, the brother of its destroyer. 



I will not go into the much disputed question of 

 specific distinction between the Gyr and Iceland Falcons 

 further than by saying that although the immature 



