On Anas erytliroplithalma. 99 



36. Sterna dougalli [?] *. 



Specimens from M. Blanc, among them a beautiful adult 

 male, perfectly white, with the exception of the black head 

 and faint roseate tinge on the underparts. Both the Roseate 

 and the Common Tern are plentiful m summer in the south 

 of the Regency, and particularly on the island of Djerba, 

 which is a favourite breeding-haunt of the Terns. 



37. Hydrochelidon nigra. 



Obtained last year, but omitted in my list. 



VIII. — Note on Anas erythrophthalma, Wied. 

 By T. Salvadori, C.M.Z.S. 



One of the most obscure species among the Ducks is 

 Anas enjthrophthalma^'\e& (Beitr. iv. p. 929), described from 

 Villa de Belmonte, in Southern Brazil. 



Of the two birds collected by Wied, the female was in good 

 condition, but the male had the wings imperfect, having lost 

 the quills. These two specimens, like the rest of Prince 

 Max of Wied's collection, are now in the American INIuseum 

 of Natural History in New York. They were examined many 

 years ago by Mr. Salvin, who thought that perhaps they 

 were to be referred to Metopiana peposaca (Ibis, 1874, 

 p. 319). The same opinion was expressed two years later 

 by Sclatcr and Salvin in their excellent " Revision of the 

 Neotropical Anatidaj'' (P. Z. S. 1876, p. 399, note). But 

 moi'c recently, in 1889, Mr. Allen, in a paper on Wied's 

 types (Bull. Am. Mus. N. H. ii. p. 269), has quite emphatic- 

 ally expressed the opinion that A. erythrophthalma is a very 

 different bird from Metopiana peposaca. 



This was the state of things when I undertook the prepara- 

 tion of the Catalogue of the Ducks in the British Museum. 

 INaturally I made a point to settle the question. 



Very soon I found that Dr. Hartlaub in 1814 (Verz. Ges. 

 ]\Ius. p. 119) had mentioned a specimen in the Bremen 



* [We leave this as written, but Mr. Aplin, to whom Saunders has 

 written on the subject, states that the only grey Tern he observed was 

 Sterna anijUra. — Enu.] 



