12 
FALCONID.^. 
decompose, when of course the feathers easily fall out. It is 
often difficult to pass the skull through the skin of the neck, 
still more to draw it hack again without tearing the skin or 
pulling out the feathers. In such cases, it is adffisahle to slit 
the top of the skull longitudinally, and by pressing it in the 
opposite direction to cause a slight degree of compression by 
the overlapping of one of the hones upon the other. 
THE GREENLAND FALCON. 
Falco canclicans. 
ICELAND HAWK. 
Those who have taken the trouble to read my various 
scattered notes on the Iceland Falcon will agree with me in 
considering it rather fortunate than otherwise that my ac- 
quaintance with that species and the Greenland Falcon had 
been comparatively slight, otherwise the confusion I assisted 
in promoting would have received a yet greater addition; hut 
it was scarcely probable that I should he able to avoid the 
stumbling-block which our highest authorities in such matters 
have only succeeded in removing within a very recent period. 
In Shetland Falco canclicans rs decidedly the more frequently 
met with of the two, notwithstanding my almost invariable 
error in reporting it as the Iceland Falcon. Chiefly oil ac- 
count of its whiter appearance and its greater powers of 
flight, it is generally taken to be the adult “ Iceland Hawk,” 
while the darker bird, the true Falco Islanclicus, is regarded as 
tlie same species in an immature state. Were this the case, the 
adult would scarcely be the commoner. 
A specimen of Falco candicans shot on the 3rd of March 
18G6 in the island of Ralta, now in the possession of Mr Gurney, 
Jun., and supposed by me at that time to belong to the 
other species, puzzled me not a little, naturalists placing great 
confidence in the idea that in one the bars upon the tail were 
alternate, in the other continuous. In this example, however. 
