An early name for the northern form of <I>Sphyrapicus ruber</I>

General

Notes.

89

781, writtenwithlead_pencil.

A

search

was

at once

made among

^sev-

eraloldcatalogues of the Society's collections, with the result that in

"A new

_Catalogueof JheSpecimens^{in the}

Department

^of Comparative

Anatomy

belonging ^{to the} Boston _Society of Natural History," 1859- 1875, there

was

found _{the entry} of this sfjecimen, ^as "Phyllostoma,"

one example, from Surinam, ^{receivedin 1832}fromDr. Cragin".

From

thisit

would

_appear that the type locality of Ametrida minor is Suri-

nam,

^or

Dutch

_Guiana, South America.

The

date of acquisition, as above _given, is probably ^erroneous. This _catalogue, it appears,

was

copiedfrom anearliermanuscriptcatalogue

and

the date 1832

may

^have

beensubstituted through mistake, for 1839,

when

Dr. Francis

W.

_Crag-

in, inilarchof that_year, presented^tothe Society "a _large

and

valua- ble collection of

Mammalia,

Birds, Reptiles, Fishes, Insects

and

Shells from Surinam".

The

_previously recorded donations of Dr. Cragin, ^as entered inan_early catalogvie ofthe '30's, did not includeany

mammals.

The

exactlocality in

Surinam whence

the batcame, cannot

now

be de- termined; but, as I

am

informed

by

^Dr. Cragin's ^{son. Prof. F.}

W.

Cragin, thedonorofthespecimen^residedfora

number

ofyears^atPara- maribo,

where

he

was

foratime U.S. consul, ^.so thatit is quite proba- blethat it

came

from that _vicinity.

The

coloration of the type speci- men,asrecorded

by

^itsdescriber, ^is "almostwhite",

which may

ⁱⁿpart beduetobleaching^inalcoholforthese sixty

odd

_years,

though

^other- wise it isstillinanexcellentstate of preservation. Trouessartappears to have omitted the species altogether from his recent "Catalogus".

—

Glove)'M.Allen.

An

_early

name

for the

northern form

of

Sphyrapicus

^ruber.

About

a year ago Mr. Joseph Grinnell (Condor, III, 12, 1901) de- scribeda

new

sapsucker from southern ^{California as}SpJiyrapicvs^variits

ditfjyetti, restrictingGmelin's Picusrithertothe northwest coast _region.

Mr.

W.

H. Osgood hasrecently(N. A. Fauna, No. 21, 45, September20, 1901)reversed the case

by

considering thenorthern

form

to be the

new

one, reviving ^{for it}PicuRflaviveritris Vieillot_(Ois.

Amer.

Sept., II, 1807, G7), based on Cook's description (Last Voyage, II, 1784, 297). If Mr.

Osgood's view^of the questionshould prove^tobethe correct one, astill earlier term, Picus ruber notkensis

Suckow

(Anfangsgr. Naturgesch.

Thiere, II, I, 1800, 535) willhavetobeconsidered.

Suckow

also based his

name

on _Cook,

and

_gave practically the

same

description ^as did Vieillot.

He

indicated the relationship ^of Cook's bird by

making

^{it a} subspecies ^of Picus _ruber,

and was

one of the first naturalists to con- sistently and intelligently use trinomials as

we

do at present.

The

proper

name

^forthenorthernform

would

thereforeappear^tobeSphyra- picus ruber^notkensis(Suckow).

—

Charles W. Richmond.