460 Hollister, Ring-necked Duck. [o"t. 



into consideration the evanescence of the diagnostic markings, and 

 the inaccessibility of the coastal marshes where the bird breeds, 

 together with the fact that the few ornithologists who seem to have 

 visited them were generally armed only with cameras, it is perhaps 

 not so odd after all. 



In assembling the data upon which these notes are based, besides 

 those already mentioned, to whom I am particularly indebted, my 

 thanks are due to Messrs. Stanley C. Arthur, O. Bangs, Howarth S. 

 Boyle, William Brewster, Jonathan Dwight, J. H. Flemming, 

 Harry C. Oberholser, Wilfred H. Osgood, T. S. Palmer, H. S. 

 Swarth, P. A. Taverner, W. E. Clyde Todd, and John E. Thayer. 



THE SYSTEMATIC POSITION OF THE RING-NECKED 



DUCK. 



BY N. HOLLISTER. 



The group of fuliguline Ducks now called Marila in the American 

 Ornithologists' Union ' Check-List ' has had its full share of nomen- 

 clatorial shifts and changes, and many schemes have been proposed 

 for its division into genera or subgenera. It has always seemed to 

 me that the question of the number and rank of the named super- 

 specific sections within this group is of little importance in com- 

 parison to the error involved in the sequence given the species in 

 the ' Check-List,' where the Canvasback is placed between the 

 Redhead and the Scaups, and the Ring-necked Duck is put at the 

 end of the series in the typical subgenus Marila. 



From a study of the literature of American Ducks it is evident 

 that the belief prevails that the Ring-necked Duck (Marila col- 

 laris) is a Scaup, very closely related to the Greater and Lesser 

 Bluebills (Marila marila and M. affinis), and this error is fostered 

 by the arrangement of the species in the ' Check-List.' One would 

 indeed be led to believe from some accounts that the Ring-neck is 

 not readily distinguished from the Lesser Scaup Duck (M. affinis) 



