468 OBERHOLSER, Notes on N. A. Birds. III. aoe 
fornia, we must, notwithstanding the implication contained in 
the subspecific term “ californica,” exclude it from the list of North 
American birds. 
Fregata aquila Linnzus. 
The name Fregata aquila Linneus,! under which the frigate 
bird of North America has heretofore passed, now proves to be 
applicable only to the bird of Ascension Island in the South At- 
lantic Ocean.2. The bird of the West Indies, and therefore of the 
southeastern United States, thus left without a name, Mr. Mathews 
proposed to call Fregata minor minor Gmelin,® by fixing the type 
locality of the latter as the West Indies.4 Dr. Walter Rothschild 
has shown, however, that the type locality of Pelecanus minor 
Gmelin is undoubtedly in the Eastern Hemisphere, and he has 
restricted it to the eastern half of the Indian Ocean.°® 
For the West Indian bird Dr. Rothschild uses the name Fregata 
magnificens Mathews, which he considers a species distinct from 
Fregata minor Gmelin, although originally described as a sub- 
species of the latter.6 Mr. Mathews, however, still maintaining 
the West Indian bird to be different from Fregata magnificens 
magnificens of the Galapagos Islands, called it provisionally Fregata 
minor rothschildi, so that in case Dr. Rothschild should prove to be 
correct in the shifting of the type locality from the West Indies to 
the Indian Ocean, the West Indian bird would be provided with a 
name.” All the specimens of Fregata that the present writer has 
been able to examine from the West Indies are undoubtedly speci- 
fically identical with Fregata magnificens Mathews, and are like- 
wise specifically distinct from Fregata minor Gmelin. Mr. Mathews 
1 Pelecanus aquilus Linneus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, I, 1758, p. 133. 
2 Mathews, Austral Avian Record, II, No. 6, December 19, 1914, pp. 117-118; Roth- 
schild, Novit. Zool., X XII, February 12, 1915, pp. 145-146. 
3 Pelecanus minor Gmelin, Syst. Nat., I, ii, 1789, p. 572. 
4 Austral Avian Record, II, No. 6, December 19, 1914, p. 118; Birds Australia, IV, part 
3, June 23, 1915, pp. 240-281. 
5 Novit. Zool., X XII, February 12, 1915, p. 145. 
6 Fregata minor magnificens Mathews, Austral Avian Record, II, No, 6, December 19, 
1914, p. 120 (Barrington, Indefatigable, and Albemarle islands, Galapagos Islands); Birds 
Australia, IV, part 3, June 23, 1915, p. 269 (type said to be from Culpepper Island, Gala- 
pagos Islands). 
7 Fregata minor rothschildi Mathews, Birds Australia, IV, part 3, June 23, 1915, p. 280 
(Aruba Island, Caribbean Sea). 
