210 PEOCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 

 Olor columhianns (Ord.) 

 Whistling Swan. 



DiAGN. — The distance from the anterior angle of the eye to the hind bor- 

 der of the nostrils much longer than the distance from the latter to the tip 

 of the Mil ; the yellow color at the base of the bill does not extend to the 

 nostrils^ making at most xs of the surface of the bill and lores; larger. 

 Total length about 1,400'""' ; middle toe with claic about 140"™. 



Syn. — ? 1791. — Cygims ferns Bartram, Travels (p. 294) (uec Leach, 1816 quie 0. cygnus 



(L.)). 

 1815. — Anas columhianns Ord, Guthrie's Geogr. 2d Amer. ed. (p. 319). 

 1826. — Anas cygnus Bp., Obs. Nomencl. Wils. p. — (nee Lin. 1758). 

 1826. — Cygnus musicus Bp., ut supra (uec Bechst. 1809, qutB O. cygnus (L.)). 

 1831. — Cygnus ferus Sharpless, Doughty's Cab. Nat. Hist. I. No. 8, p. 181 



(uec Leach, 1816). 

 IS^l.-^Cygnus americanus Sharpl., op. cit. p. 185.* 

 1831. — Cygnus iewickii Rich., iu Sw. & Eich., Fauna Bor., Amer. II, p. 465 



(uec Yarr. 1830). 



N'ote 1 to the Synonymy. — As it seems impossible to decide whether 

 Bartram has met with the Trumpeter or the Whistling Swan, I have 

 admitted it to the latter species with query. Probably it may belong 

 to this, but on the probability alone I should not like to transfer to any 

 species a name which another bird has borne during a long time. 



I^ote 2. — In order to justify the change of the uame givxn by Sharp- 

 less, and the reinstatement of Ord's title, I quote below Dr. Elliott 

 CouES's investigation iu this matter: — " By their size and the difference 

 in the voice, the two American si)ecies are correctly discriminated by 

 Lewis and Clarke ;t nnfortunarely, however, they blunder in the 

 matter by saying that the large species (i. e., the one subsequently 

 called Cygnus buccinator by Sir John Eichardson) is the same as that 

 common on the Atlantic coast; whereas, it is their other species, here 

 called by them the Trumpeter, that is found also in the Atlantic States. 

 But this confusion must not be allowed to stand in the light of the main 

 point of this case, which is that in 1815, Ord based his Anas columbi- 

 anus exclusively upon the Whistling Swan of Lewis and Clarke, i. e., 

 upon the smaller of the two species, subsequently named Cygnus ameri- 

 canus by Sharpless. The blunder of the original authors does not 

 extend to Ord, to whose name columbianus should be restored its right- 

 ful priority." (Bull. U. S. Geol. and Geogr. Surv. Terr. 2d ser. No. 0, 

 p. 444.) 



Note 3. — In opposition to those American ornithologists who have re- 

 garded the specimen from Igloolik (iu 06° K. Lat.), desciibed by Kich- 



* Only the word "Americana" occurs, the whole name, Cygnus americanus first being 

 found in Sharpless's paper in the Americ. Jouru. Sc. Art. xxii, 1832, p. 83. The date 

 of number 8 of Doughty's Cabinet is 1831 and not 1830, as generally quoted. 



t History of the Expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clarke. 

 By Paul Allen, Philad., 1814, II, (p. 192). 



