is made of a specimen that was shot on Bungay Common.
By the kindness of Mr. Allis of York, I have heard that a
very fine adult specimen was shot within a few miles of that
city on the 15th March 1837. One of the specimens
now in the Museum of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was killed in
Northumberland; and Pennant possessed one that was shot
near Aberdeen. Mr. Low, in his Fauna of Orkney, considered
the Gyr-Falcon as only an occasional visitor : Mr.
Bullock, when he visited the Orkneys, saw one sitting
on a stone wall in the island of Stronsa; but its appearance
was not observed by more recent Ornithologists.
As before mentioned, its true habitat appears to be in
higher northern latitudes, — Norway, Iceland, Greenland,
Siberia, Russia, and occasionally the north of Germany ; but
apparently in no country more plentiful than in North America.
Dr. Richardson says, “ We saw it often during our
journeys over the Barren Grounds, where its habitual prey is
the Ptarmigan, but where it also destroys Plover, Ducks,
and Geese.”
Major Sabine, in his Memoir on the Birds of Greenland,
says, “ The progress of this bird from youth, when it is quite
brown, to the almost perfect whiteness of its maturity, forms
a succession of changes in which each individual feather gradually
loses a portion of its brown colour as the white edging
on the margin increases in breadth from year to year.” Dr.
Richardson also, who has had favourable opportunities for
observing this species at different ages, says, “ The young
Gyr-Falcons show little white on their plumage, being
mostly of a dull brown colour above. As they grow older,
the white margins encroach on the brown, which becomes
merely a central blotch, indented on each side by the white ;
while in aged birds the plumage is mostly pure white, varied
only by a few narrow transverse bars on the upper parts.”
These coinciding observations from two distinguished
naturalists render any attempt at a technical description
unnecessary, beyond adding that the specimen from which the
present figure was taken measured twenty-three inches in
length from the point of the beak to the end of the ta il:
the beak itself pale bluish horn colour, the cere yellow ;
the irides dark, as are those of all the true Falcons : the
head, neck, chest, under surface of the body, and under tail-
coverts, become pure white before the greyish brown spots
and bars are lost on the back and upper surface of the wings ;
the wing-primaries are dark at the tip, but do not reach to
the end of the ta il: the tarsi and toes are yellow ; the claws
black, curved, and sharp.