FAMILY FREGATIDAE 77 



p. 364) described as "over a fresh-water pond and diving at in- 

 tervals for fish" without much doubt had come for water. In a 

 recent observation at a dam on the Rio Mulege, Baja CaHfornia, 

 bathing without drinking in this species is described in some detail 

 (Kielhorn, Norris, and Evans, Condor, vol. 65, no. 3, 1963 pp. 

 240-241). 



The habit of visiting fresh-water ponds is recorded also for the 

 related Pacific frigatebird Fregata minor palmerstani, as Walter 

 K. Fisher (Condor, vol. 6, no. 3, 1904, p. 60) observed them 

 drinking at a small pond on Laysan Island, in the Hawaiian Bird 

 Reservation. 



Proposals to recognize three geographic races of this frigatebird 

 have been based on supposed differences in size. Under this the 

 typical form, alleged to be larger, with longer wing, has been re- 

 stricted to the Galapagos Islands. 



The birds of the Cape Verde Islands, ranging to western Africa 

 have been named Fregata magnificens lowei by Bannerman, on the 

 supposition that this population had a much larger bill ; and the 

 frigates nesting in the rest of their extensive range in the Atlantic 

 area, including the Caribbean islands, and in the Pacific from Baja 

 California to the coast of Ecuador have been separated by Mathews 

 as Fregata magnificens rothschildi on the basis of supposed smaller 

 size. In an extensive series of measurements that I have assembled 

 the suggested differences do not hold, as birds with large and small 

 wing and bill sizes are encountered at random through the entire 

 geographic range. Measurements of birds from the west coast of 

 America are listed above at the beginning of the account of this 

 species. Comparable figures for specimens from the Caribbean 

 area and the western Atlantic are as follows : Males (32 specimens), 

 wing 583-648 (610), culmen from base 106.2-119.3 (111.8) mm. 

 Females (15 specimens), wing 610-672 (636), culmen from base 

 118.5-132.2 (126.9) mm. Two males from Boa Vista, Cape Verde 

 Islands (type locality of lowei) have the culmen 111.0 and 113.9 

 mm., and in one female this measurement is 129.0 mm. On this 

 basis the species may not be divided with any probability of proper 

 allocation of individuals found away from their breeding grounds. 



[Fregata minor ridgwayi Mathews, the great frigatebird, which 

 breeds in the Galapagos, and on Isla Cocos, far off the Pacific coast 

 of Panama, may reach Panamanian waters, though to date it has 

 not been recorded. The adult male of this bird has the back glossy 

 oil green, with a dark-brown band on the wing across the wing 



