COUES’S GADWALL 
/lA’/lS COUESI (Streets) 
(Plate 27) 
Synonymy 
?Anas strepera Forster, Descriptiones Animalium, p. 156, 1844. 
Chaulelasmus strepera, var..^ G. R. Gray, Cat. Birds Tropical Ids., p. 55, 1859. 
Chaulelasmus coiiesi Streets, Bull. Nuttall Ornith. Club, vol. 1, p. 46, 1876. 
Anas couesi Seebohm, History of British Birds, vol. 3, p. 531, 1885. 
Vernacular Name 
English: Coues’s Gadwall. 
DESCRIPTION 
Male (type, no. 67,325 in U.S. National Museum, taken on Washington Island, Fanning group, by 
Dr. T. H. Streets, January, 1874): This specimen may not be adult, and is not in very good condi- 
tion. It has the general appearance of Anas strepera in eclipse or half-adult plumage. There is no 
vermiculated appearance except a very small amount on the wing-coverts. The mantle, back, 
breast and under parts are essentially those of a female Gadwall. The head is in such poor condition 
that the colors are scarcely to be made out. The lamellae of the bill are small and closely packed, 
and greatly exceed those in Anas strepera. 
Size much smaller than Gadwall. Wing 199 mm.; bill 37; tarsus 36. 
Female: This is essentially a small female Gadwall, but the greater wing-coverts are not black, and 
the inner part of the speculum is gray, not white, but this might well be a juvenile character. 
DISTRIBUTION 
Found on Washington and New York Islands, Fanning group (north latitude 6°, west longitude 
160°). 
GENERAL 
This duck has never been found since it was discovered in 1874 by Streets on the 
lake and in the peat-bogs of Washington Island. We do not know whether the 
species still exists, or whether it has been destroyed by the introduction of foreign 
mammals. Mr. R. H. Beck, collecting for the Whitney South Sea Expedition of the 
American Museum of Natural History, will, I hope, soon be able to tell us whether 
or not it is extinct. Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy tells me that he has recently 
received a letter from Dr. Ball of the Bishop Museum (Honolulu) in which it is stated 
that the Bishop Museum during its expedition to the island in the summer of 1922 
could not find the bird. 
