3. GREENLAND FALCON. _Falco candicans_, Gmelin.--I was much surprised
on my last visit to Alderney, on the 27th of June, 1878, on going into a
small carpenter's shop in the town, whose owner, besides being a
carpenter, is also an amateur bird-stuffer, though of the roughest
description, to find, amongst the dust of his shop, not only the Purple
Heron, which I went especially to see, and which is mentioned
afterwards, but a young Greenland Falcon which he informed me had been
shot in that island about eighteen months ago. This statement was
afterwards confirmed by the person who shot the bird, who was sent for
and came in whilst I was still in the shop. Unfortunately, neither the
carpenter nor his friend who shot the bird had made any note of the
date, and could only remember that the one had shot the bird in that
Island about eighteen months ago and the other had stuffed it
immediately after. This would bring it to the winter of 1876-77, or,
more probably, the late autumn of 1876. In the course of conversation it
appeared to me that the Snow Falcon--as they called this bird--was not
entirely unknown to the carpenter or his friend, though neither could
remember at the time another instance of one having been killed in that
Island. It is, however, by no means improbable that either this species
or the next mentioned, or both, may have occurred in the Islands before,
as Professor Ansted, though he gives no date or locality, includes the
Gyr Falcon in his list of Channel Island birds. As all three of the
large northern white Falcons were at one time included under the name of
Gyr Falcons, and, as Professor Ansted gives no description of the bird
mentioned by him, it is impossible to say to which species he alluded.
We may fairly conclude, however, that it was either the present species
or the Iceland Falcon, as it could hardly have been the darker and less
wandering species, the Norway Falcon, the true Gyr Falcon of falconers,
_Falco gyrfalco_ of Linnaeus, which does not wander so far from its
native home, and has never yet, as far as is at present known, occurred