22 
FALCONIDiE. 
RAPTORES. 
FALCON I D/E. 
ICELAND FALCON. 
Falco Islandicus. (Hancock.) 
PLATE VII. 
At the meeting of the British Association in Newcastle, 
Mr. John Hancock cleared up, to the satisfaction of the 
Ornithologists there present, all those doubts which had 
previously existed with regard to the Gyr Falcon ; he has 
since, too, had opportunities of examining a large series 
of both the Greenland and Iceland birds, and of verifying 
and confirming his former opinions on the subject. 
Ornithologists, though unable to settle the question, had 
pretty generally come to the opinion that there was but 
one species, and that the White, or Greenland specimens, 
were merely varieties of age of the Grey, or Iceland bird. 
Faber, who spent some time in Iceland, and paid great 
attention to the subject, finding that the Falcon of that 
country retained the dark grey plumage during the breed¬ 
ing-season, was induced to consider the white birds which 
he saw only in the winter months, as albino varieties of 
the former. 
All these difficulties Mr. Hancock has got rid of, Im¬ 
proving that the beautifully-marked black and white birds 
are of a distinct species ; that the Falcons attain their 
mature dress at the first moult, and that although both the 
species are very much alike when young and in their 
nesting plumage, yet that the bird which remains in Ice¬ 
land the year through, and which must retain the name of 
