TOWNSEND AND WETMORE : THE BIRDS. 169 



"8. Pelecanus (piscator) rostro serrato, cauda cuneiformi. 



A. Anseri bassano affinis fusca avio. Sloane jam. 



B. Anseri bassano congener cinereo-albus. Sloane jam. 

 prsef. 31. t. 6. f. 1. Raj. aves 191. 



Bubbi chinensibus. 



Hujus duo adsunt sexus. 



MAS (a) totus niger, abdomine canescente. 



FEMINA (/?) tot a albida, remigibiis nigris. 



Rostrum utrisque gibbum, in foemina pra>cipue sanguineum, 



margine tenuissime retrorsum 



serrato. 

 Gula nigra. 



Corpus magnitudine anatis ma j oris. 

 Pedes sanguinei, magni, tetradactyli, digitis omnibus com- 



muni membrana junctis; unguis intermedii margo interior 



dilatatus & fere pectinatus. 

 Aloe utrius que sexus subtus albicant. 

 Redrices caudae XIV, interioribus sensim longioribus, in 



foemina etjam parum fuscescentibus." 



There is little question that the male and female described above 

 belong to separate species of which the female is the bird now known 

 as Sula piscator. 



Linne himself recognized that this name covered a mixture of two 

 species, and in his twelfth edition of the Systema naturae (1766, p. 

 217) he again gives Pelecmms piscator with a slightly different diagno- 

 sis, and the reference "Amoen. acad. 4, p. 239. femina." This cita- 

 tion refers to the reprint published in 1759, on page 239 of which is 

 found the description as quoted above. Linne as first reviser of the 

 species has here restricted the name Pelecanus piscator to the female 

 of the bird described by Odhelius, and there can be no doubt but that 

 the Red-footed booby is intended. Mathews objects to Linne's 

 statement that the flight feathers are black on the grounds that in 

 the Red-footed booby the outer webs of the quills have a hoary gray 

 appearance. This is true, but at the same time the body color of the 

 feather is black, and to a casual inspection the entire feather appears 

 blackish. The older naturalists were not so critical of color differences 

 as are ornithologists today, so that we may overlook this slight error 

 as the rest of the description tallies closely. Because of this state- 

 ment that the wing feathers are black Mr. Mathews suggests that the 

 bird described was Sula abbotti Ridgway, a species with intensely 

 black flight feathers. This cannot be true, however, as Odhelius 



