176 Brewster, Something More about Black Ducks. [.April 



It is truly deplorable that the Black Duck of our New England 

 and Middle States, the Anas obscura of Gmelin, should have to 

 relinquish the appropriate and familiar name which it has borne 

 unchanged, and unaccompanied by a single synonym, for more 

 than one hundred years. There is no other alternative, however, 

 at least from the view point of ornithologists who take Linna?us at 

 1758 instead of 1766 and who also subscribe to the maxim "Once 

 a synonym always a synonym." Since the unfortunate bird is now 

 left without any specific scientific title I propose that it be hereafter 

 known as tristis, partly because of its subdued coloring but also 

 to commemorate the sad. fate it has been called upon to suffer at 

 the hands of authorities on nomenclature. If this name be not 

 preoccupied in Anatidse (one can never be absolutely sure in re- 

 spect to such a matter), the two more northern forms of the Black 

 Duck group will stand, respectively, as follows: — 



Anas rubripes Brewster. Red-legged Black Duck. 



Anas rubripes tristis Brewster. Black Duck. 



It must be admitted that it seems very like adding insult to injury 

 to thus relegate it to a subordinate place in the group where it has 

 long stood at the very head, a bird which has just been robbed of an 

 ancestral and time-honored name. Nor does this arrangement 

 meet with the approval of all my scientific friends. Two of those 

 whom I have consulted about it — both eminent zoologists for 

 whose opinion on such a matter I have the highest respect — hold 

 that as the Anas obscura of Gmelin was, as far as we know, the first 

 form of Black Duck to be recognized and described by ornitholo- 

 gists it should continue to be regarded as the original or "parent" 

 form and that rubripes, which has been separated from it only 

 very recently, should bear the trinomial appellation and take 

 second place. This view appeals to me strongly. Indeed, it seems 

 so logical and so obviously based on sound scientific principle that 

 I have been tempted to adopt and act on it. But there is a practical 

 consideration entitled, evidently, to still greater weight which 

 Mr. Witmer Stone has expressed in the following words, contained 

 in a letter that he has just written me: — "The whole thing comes 

 down to a realization of the fact that we cannot represent more than 

 one thing in our technical nomenclature and that is the earliest name 

 for the form according to our Code. Evolution and history have 



