180 Correspondence. [ Jan 



of the A. O. U., it was thought that an invitation from Philadelphia, where 

 the A. O. U. meeting of 1921 would naturally be held, might facilitate the 

 arrangements. 



Respectfully submitted : 



Witmer Stone J. Parker Norris 



William L. Baily William E. Roberts 



George Spencer Morris Conrad K. Roland 



Samuel N. Rhoads Francis L. Bacon 



Spencer Trotter John D. Carter 



Robert T. Moore Robert Riddle 



C. E. Ehinger S. Earl Riddle 



J. Fletcher Street Thomas H. Jackson 



Julian K. Potter Edward Norris 



George H. Stuart 3rd. Francis R. Cope, Jr. 



Samuel C. Palmer William H. Trotter 



William E. Hughes Edwin B. Bartram 



H. Severn Regar William B. Evans 



Stewardson Brown Wm. J. Serrill 



Henry W. Fowler Samuel A. Tatnall 



James A. G. Rehn Anthony W. Robinson 



Arthur C. Emlen Cornelius Weygandt 



Samuel Scoville, Jr. Robt. P. Sharpies 



Name of the Red-footed Booby. 



Editor of 'The Auk': 



In the ' Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool.,' Vol. lxiii, August, 1919, a paper by 

 Messrs. Townsend and Wetmore appears dealing with ' Birds from the 

 Tropical Pacific' On p. 167, under the name Sula pincator (Linne) a dis- 

 cussion of the name to be used for the Red-footed Booby is given. There 

 appear to be fundamental errors in the reasoning, and it is quite impossible 

 to fix the name "piscator" to a species, because it is "believed" that the 

 female described by Linne was that species. It is conceded that "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." In 

 Teaching this conclusion the authors eliminate the discrepancy in the colour 

 •of the quills, but lay stress on the number of tail feathers, though a couple 

 ■could have been lost in the latter case, just as easily as a mistake could 

 have been made in the former. 



They admit that only the type of Sula abbotti Ridgway from the Mas- 

 carene group was available, but gloss over the fact that Adhelius' descrip- 

 tion was based on birds collected by Osbeck very close to Christmas 



