OCR Text |
Show 414 MR. R. B. SHARPE ON FALCO ARCTICUS. [Apr. 1, with white, the hairs of the body being greyish for two thirds of their length, the terminal third being brownish black with a white tip. Fur much less thick than in Sc. alboniger. Margins of the parachute with a very narrow and inconspicuous yellowish-white edge. Paws and spur light brownish, with many yellowish hairs. Lower parts rather densely covered with hair (especially the body and limbs), yellowish white; scrotum and praeanal region orange-coloured. Lower side of the parachute light greyish brown. Tail bushy, constricted near the base, brownish grey, darker along the upper and lower median lines, many of the hairs being black near the tip. Cheeks without bristles ; ears short; incisors of adult males pale yellow. Length of the body from the nose to the vent 10 inches ; of the tail 9 inches ; of the carpal spur 2 inches 1 line. I have seen two examples of this species, both adult males, the tail of one being a little more bushy and darker than that of the other. One is from Pinang, and has been presented by his Grace the Duke of Argyll; the other, from Malacca, has been purchased. 5. On the Falco arcticus of Holboll, with Remarks on the changes of Plumage in some other Accipitrine Birds. By R. BOWDLER SHARPE, F.L.S., F.Z.S., &c, Senior Assistant, Zoological Department, British Museum. [Eeceived March 4, 1873.] (Plate XXXIX.) The late Governor Holboll, when in Greenland, paid evident at-tion to the two Jer Falcons found in that country, and recognized two distinct species, though he failed to assign to them thoroughly trenchant characters ; hence the difficulty in the recognition of his Falco arcticus. In a paper published on the subject in the ' Zeitschrift fiir die gesammten Naturwissenschaften' (vol. iii. 1854, p. 425), he calls these two birds Falco islandicus candicans, Schlegel, and F. arcticus, Holboll. He draws up the characters of these two birds not on the differences of colour, but upon certain variations in the proportions of the tarsus and middle toe, & c , and in the shape of the tail. These characters, if substantiated, would have relegated the two Greenland Jer Falcons to different genera, a consummation which would have much simplified the matter ; but unfortunately no one was ever able to ratify them, and the confusion became worse confounded. W e possess in the Museum several birds collected in Greenland by Holboll, and among them a noble seriesof the true Greenland Jer Falcon (Falco candicans). On the stands of some of these the late Mr. Gray has recorded (doubtless from Holboll's own tickets) that they are the F. arcticusoi Holboll, from which it would appear that his species consisted partly of the fresh-moulted examples of F. candicans (the so-called " dark race"), and partly of the "light variety " of the Iceland Falcon found in Greenland. No one, there- |