deserted nests of this Falcon, being too late to find any tenanted by the owners; this Ges in the beginning
of August ; and from one of them he took an addled egg. tite es ves eu pose of sticks and roots, and
lined an wool, much resembling that of a Raven, to which bird : might have originally belonged. Strewn
around it lay the remains of many Whimbrels, Golden Plovers, Guillemots, and Ducks. All the nests he saw
were in cliffs forming the boundaries of freshwater lakes, but none of them so high in the mountains as

he expected to find them. A similar account is given by Faber of a nest seen by him in 1821, This,

the only one he found, was in South-western Iceland ;
; There were three full-grown young, two of which, on the 6th of July, had

it was large and flat, placed on the upper part of an
inaccessible wall of rock.
already left it and sat near by. The old birds flew around screaming, but did not attack him. Remains of
rious sea-fowl lay about. Omaber adds, both young and old approach the homesteads, where they sit on
elevations and often fight with the Ravens. Four seems to be the proper complement S eggs; they are
suffused or closely freckled with reddish orange or pale reddish brown on a dull white ground, which
commonly is hardly discernible between the markings, though these are sometimes collected into blotches ot
considerable extent 3 specimens measure from 2°48 to 2°13 inches by from 1-91 to 1°72.”

“‘In the days when falconry stood first on the list of sports,” says Mr. Hoy, ‘ the Icelander was considered
a present worthy the acceptance of aking. The King of Denmark sent a vessel annually to Iceland to bring
all the Hawks of this kind it was possible to procure for the use of his falconers, and to be sent as presents
to the different princes on the Continent ; they were even sent to the Barbary states and into the Eastern
countries ; so much were they esteemed. An old falconer, lately dead, assured me that he had seen
upwards of fifty Iceland Falcons at the same time in the care of persons who were about e start with poor
as presents to the different courts of Europe. A falconer who was in the hawking establishment of Louis
XVI. of France informed me that they had several casts or pairs sent annually from Denmark. The
Icelander was greatly prized, not only on account of its superior powers of flight, but its tractable, gentle
disposition. It is not so difficult to reclaim and manage as the Ger Falcon; there is also a decided difference
in their flight and manner of striking their prey; the Icelander, in the langnage of falconry, flies more
nobly, pouncing his prey with more lofty stoops. The flight of the hare with the female, the male being
used for the Heron, Kite, and Buzzards, was considered one of the finest sights the sport could afford. An
open country is requisite to see this flight in perfection. The hare being started, the Falcon was immediately
thrown off the fist, and, instantly catching sight of its prey, mounted toa considerable height; a slow dog,
well trained with the Hawk, was used to keep the hare running, as it would otherwise squat on being once
stooped at by the Falcon. The Falcon kills the hare by repeated blows on the back and head, coming in an
almost perpendicular direction upon it from a great height and with wonderful velocity, the blow being
almost imperceptibly given in passing, and the Falcon again rising, or, as they term it, shooting up steeple-
high after every stoop; occasionally the victim is killed the first stoop, and driven several yards by the
violence of it. In a good flight several lofty stoops are made. Again, in the air the Icelander kills the
Crane, Heron, or Kite by repeated blows, the great interest taken in the flight being to watch the exertions
of the Falcon to out-soar its prey and then precipitate itself with closed wings and astonishing rapidity
and force, its prey seldom reaching the ground without being mortally disabled. tae instance has occurred
of a male Icelander striking the head from the neck of a Heron by a single blow in the air.” —Mag. Nat.
Fist. vol. vi. 1833, p. 108.

On comparing either sex of the present species with the corresponding sex of the Norwegian or Gyrfalcon,
it will be found to be of larger size, to have the upper and under surface much lighter in colour, the face
and crown striated and without any Peregrine-like appearance in its countenance, the bars of the tail quite
perfect and well defined, the feet and cere pale yellow and not orange-yellow as in the Gyr Falcon, and the
head more bluff or less elegant in shape.

I must not fail to mention that the markings of the under surface are of a striated form in the youthful
birds, and that these marks become of a transverse or barred form in the adult.
the other remarkable differences between the adul
Plates, the one representing the former, the other
the natural size,

To illustrate these and
t and young, I have considered it necessary to give two
a bird of the first autumn, both somewhat less than