. A history of British birds . t form, the birds are ofsingular beauty. In both young and old the flight-feathersof the wings and tail are ordinarily barred, but the latter areoften entirely white. A very large series of examples maybe compared without finding two which are exactly similar,and there can be little doubt that the bird which is sparselymarked in its youth will be as sparsely marked when old ;while, on the other hand, the closely-marked young willremain as closely marked when adult—a rule which holdsequally good in the Iceland Falcon, where the dark or lightcomplexion is permanent
. A history of British birds . t form, the birds are ofsingular beauty. In both young and old the flight-feathersof the wings and tail are ordinarily barred, but the latter areoften entirely white. A very large series of examples maybe compared without finding two which are exactly similar,and there can be little doubt that the bird which is sparselymarked in its youth will be as sparsely marked when old ;while, on the other hand, the closely-marked young willremain as closely marked when adult—a rule which holdsequally good in the Iceland Falcon, where the dark or lightcomplexion is permanent. The cere, orbits and feet are ofa pale yellow in the adult Greenland Falcon, and light bluish-grey in the young. The irides, as are those of all the trueFalcons (excejjt as a rare individual peculiarity), are dark. The specimen here figured measured twenty-three inchesfrom the point of the beak to the end of the tail; the wing,from the carpal joint to the lip, is about fifteen inches. 46 ACCIPJTRES. FALCONID/E. FALCONID^ Falco islandus, J. F. Gmelin*.THE ICELAND FALCON. Falco (li/rfaho (in part)f. The chief differences between the subject of the precedingarticle and the Iceland Falcon have therein been succinctlymentioned. It remains to j)oint out the characters whichdistinguish the latter from the true Gyr-Falcon of the Scan-dinavian Peninsula, and probably of countries further to theeastward. In immature plumage the two birds greatly re- * Syst. N:it. i. p. 271 (17SS). + Not Falco f/i/r/a!ro, Linnteus. ICELAND FALCON. 47 semble each other, so much so, that it is often not easy atfirst sight to separate them, especially as the Icelander, likethe Greenland Falcon, is subject to a considerable amount ofvariety in the prevailing shade of tint, and it is quite possiblethat examples of the true Gyr-Falcon have occurred in theseislands, and have been mistaken for the commoner a rule, however, it may be asserted that in the IcelandFalcon the crown of the head is lighte
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsaun, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectbirds
