XXXV 1 
INTRODUCTION 
21. FalCO 1‘EREGniNUS Vol. I. PI. XVII. 
Peregrine Falcon. 
Besides Great Britain, the Peregrine frequents Greenland, Iceland, the whole of Europe, North Africa, 
India, and China. 
The following note, illustrative of one of the habits of this bird, kindly communicated to me by the Duke 
of Argyll, will prove of interest. It is dated from Inverary, June 4, 1868. “ I find we are rich this year in 
nests of the Falconidce : — two of the Peregrine ; two of the Hen-Harrier, and a third, the spot not yet 
discovered ; and one of the Merlin. One of my keepers, who is, I think, a reliable man, tells me that the 
day before yesterday, when he was watching one of the Peregrines’ nests, he saw the male come from across 
Loch Fyne w'ith a bird in his talons. When he cried, the hen bird came out of the precipice and joined him 
in the air, and took from the male the bird he was carrying. Tliis must have been a pretty sight.” 
22. Falco subbuteo Vol. I. PI. XVIII. 
Hobby. 
A summer bird in our islands, where it breeds in woods, either in the forsaken nest of a Crow or in one 
which it builds for itself, I have received Hobbies from other countries besides Britain and the continent 
of Europe, viz. India, China, and Africa, but not from America, where, indeed, it is not found. This bird 
and some others of the same form have been deemed sufficiently distinct from the other Falcons to constitute 
it the type of a separate genus ; by those authors, therefore, who adopt minute divisions of genera, it is 
termed Hypotriorchis subhuteo, instead of Falco subbuteo. It is less bold and sanguinary than the Peregrine 
or the Merlin, feeds on insects to a considerable extent, particularly Chafers, and consequently is somewhat 
crepuscular in its habits, such large insects being principally obtainable as they flit round the tops of great 
trees after sunset. 
23. Falco jEsalon 
Vol. I. PI. XIX. 
Merlin. 
This bird has also been removed by Professor Kaup from the genus Falco into that of ^salon, a division 
wdiich, being a very natural one, the scientific ornithologist will not repudiate ; but in a work on our native 
birds these minute divisions are scarcely admissible, since the finding of so many of their old triends under 
new' appellations could scarcely be otherwise than distasteful to iny readers. In many instances where I have 
departed from the practice of the older naturalists, I have been not lightly censured for the innovation ; but 
