and most magnificent of the many works relating to the
subject—quotes (p. 77) from Madox’s ‘ History of the Exchequer
’ (London : 1701, p. 186) a passage to the effect
that in the fifth year of King Stephen’s reign, about 1139,
one Outi of Lincoln had to pay a fine of one hundred
Norwegian Hawks, and one hundred “ Girfals,” of which
last it was stipulated that six were to be white; and later,
as appears from several passages in Rymer’s ‘ Foedera ’
(Londini: 1705, pp. 1071, 1075, and 1087), Norwegian
and white Falcons formed royal gifts. Thus, in 1279, Magnus
King of Norway writing from Bergen to Edward I., sends
him “ aliquos Gerofalcones; ” and this same Magnus on his
deatlr-bed, in 1280, left his sons to Edward’s care, accompanying
the bequest with a present of two noble white
Falcons and six grey ones. While King Edward, in 1282,
writing to Alphonso of Castille, transmits him four grey
Falcons, of which two were trained to Cranes and Herons,
and apologizes for sending no white oires, having lately lost
nine, but adds that messengers had already gone to fetch
some more from Norway, of which he himself would by-and-
hye be the bearer. In the last century, we learn from
Horrebow that the falconers of the King of Denmark, who
were annually despatched to Iceland, paid the natives who
caught the birds from twice to three times as much for white
as for grey ones. This same writer also mentions that “ in
winter whole flights of Falcons come over from Greenland [to
Iceland] and are chiefly white.” The adult specimen of the
Greenland Falcon, now in the Museum of Newcastle-on-Tyne,
from which Bewick’s woodcut was drawn, was given to Mr.
Tunstall by the then Lord Orford, a great falconer, who
obtained it from Iceland or Greenland, and had used it for
many years in taking Hares and Kabbits; hut these large
Falcons were most valued for flights at Cranes and Herons.
The preceding remarks on the different characters of the
Greenland and Iceland Falcons render any minute description
of the former unnecessary; but it should he observed
that in both forms the plumage is subject to great variation in
markings and tint, and this variation is, subject to the rules
already laid down, not dependent upon age. The young of
the Greenland Falcon is more or less white, like the ad u lt;
but the old birds always have the upper surface to a greater
or less extent adorned with heart-shaped spots or transverse
blotches of black or very dark slate-colour, and these sometimes
approach each other so nearly as to form bands. The
head is pure white or only slightly streaked. Beneath, the
markings are less numerous than above, and the under tail-
coverts are spotless.
In the first plumage, the dark markings are commonly of
a paler colour, being blackish-brown of a deeper or lighter
shade ; and these, on the body-featliers generally, instead of
being transverse or heart-shaped, are longitudinal or tear-
sliaped. When they take this last form, the biids are of
singular beauty. In both young and old the flight-feathers
of the wings and tail are ordinarily barred, but the latter are
often entirely white. A very large series of examples may
be compared without finding two which are exactly similar,
and there can be little doubt that the bird which is sparsely
marked in its youth will be as sparsely marked when old;
while, on the other hand, the closely-marked young will
remain as closely marked when adult—a rule which holds
equally good in the Iceland Falcon, where the dark or light
complexion is permanent. The cere, orbits and feet are of
a pale yellow in the adult Greenland Falcon, and light bluish-
grey in the young. The irides, as are those of all the true
Falcons (except as a rare individual peculiarity), are dark.
The specimen here figured measured twenty-three inches
from the "pQint of the beak to the end of the ta il; the wing,
from the carpal joint to the lip, is about fifteen inches.