Skip to content

Historical bird plates

Gould, The Birds of Great Britain · Volume I, plate 15

Gyrfalcon

Printed “Greenland Falcon (dark race, young)”

Volume I, plate 15 of Gould's The Birds of Great Britain: Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus) — Full resolutionSmithsonian Libraries and Archives, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

The whole sheet of volume I, plate 15, with its engraved caption — Full resolutionSmithsonian Libraries and Archives, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Printed on the plate

“Greenland Falcon (dark race, young)”

Falco candicans

Engraved caption: FALCO CANDICANS.

Modern identification

Falco rusticolus

Certain
A variant
Checked against the engraved caption
Falcons and Caracaras · Falconidae

Why

The young of Gould's 'dark race' of the Greenland Falcon: a dark Greenland Gyrfalcon, as on I.14.

Sources

engraved caption; Gould's text; Birds of Europe plate 19

Who made the plate

J. Wolf & H. C. Richter, del et lith.Walter, Imp.

Joseph Wolf drew and lithographed
Henry Constantine Richter drew and lithographed
Walter printed

As the credit line gives it. More on who made these plates.

The scan at the Biodiversity Heritage Library

The same bird on other plates