General Notes. 89 



781, written with lead pencil. A search was at once made among sev 

 eral old catalogues of the Society's collections, with the result that in 

 "A new Catalogue of the Specimens in the Department of Comparative 

 Anatomy belonging to the Boston Society of Natural History," 1859- 

 1875, there was found the entry of this specimen, as "Phyllostoma, " 

 one example, from Surinam, received in 1832 from Dr. Cragin". From 

 this it 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 

 copied from an earlier manuscript catalogue and the date 1832 may have 

 been substituted through mistake, for 1839, when Dr. Francis W. Crag 

 in, in March of that year, presented to the 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 in an early catalogue of the '30's, did not include any mammals. 

 The exact locality in Surinam whence the bat came, cannot now be de 

 termined; but, as I am informed by Dr. Cragin's son, Prof. F. W. 

 Cragin, the donor of the specimen resided for a number of years at Para 

 maribo, where he was for a time U. S. consul, so that it is quite proba 

 ble that it came from that vicinity. The coloration of the type speci 

 men, as recorded by its describer, is "almost white", which may in part 

 be due to bleaching in alcohol for these sixty odd years, though other 

 wise it is still in an excellent state of preservation. Trouessart appears 

 to have omitted the species altogether from his recent "Catalogus". 

 Glover M. Allen. 



An early name for the northern form of Sphjrapicus ruber. 



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

 scribed a new sapsucker from southern California as Sphyrapicus varius 

 daggetti, restricting Gmelin's Picus ruber to the northwest coast region. 

 Mr. W. H. Osgood has recently (N. A. Fauna, No. 21, 45, September 26, 

 1901) reversed the case by considering the northern form to be the new 

 one, reviving for it Picus flamventris Vieillot (Ois. Amer. Sept., II, 1807, 

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

 Osgood 's view of the question should prove to be the correct one, a still 

 earlier term, Picus ruber notkensis Suckow (Anfangsgr. Naturgesch. 

 Thiere, II, I, 1800, 535) will have to be considered. 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 for the northern form would therefore appear to be Sphyra 

 picus ruber notkensis (Suckow). CJiarles W. Richmond. 



