BIRDS OP THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 



205 



18 mi. S. W. of San Antonio, Texas." 1 Acting upon these proposed changes 

 the A. O. U. Committee, in 1897, accepted the name pacifiais and rejected the 

 names subarcticus and occidentalis. All this happened before Howe and Allen's 

 ' Birds of Massachusetts ' was written ; about the time this paper was pubhshed 

 the Committee accepted the name pallescens. 



Since then Dr. Charles W. Richmond has pointed out that the name Bubo 

 arcticus was used by Forster for the Snowy Owl in "1817 (Synoptical Catalogue 

 of British Birds, 47)" whereas " Swainson's name Strix {Bubo) arctica (Fauna 

 Boreali-Americana, II, 86, Feb., 1832)" was not applied to the Arctic Horned 

 Owl until 1832. Dr. Richmond therefore proposed to substitute Hoy's name 

 subarcticus for arcticus? Still more recently Mr. Harry C. Oberholser in his 

 admirable 'Revision of the American Great Horned Owls' resuscitates the name 

 occidentalis Stone, which he applies to a rather large and light-colored race 

 formerly included among the birds which were called subarcticus, but which was 

 not, of course, the subarcticus of Hoy. This race is found, he says, in the 

 " Western United States, from Minnesota and Kansas to Nevada, southeastern 

 Oregon, Utah, and Montana ; south in winter to Iowa." ^ He agrees with Dr. 

 Richmond that the name arcticus cannot be used for the Arctic Horned Owl, 

 but he would replace it by the name wapacuthu (Gmelin), which is earlier than 

 subarcticus Hoy.* The name wapacuthu, however, was based by Gmelin on a 

 description taken by Pennant from a manuscript account by Hutchins of an 

 Owl which, it is distinctly stated, is without ears. This fact precludes the use 

 of the name for the Arctic Horned Owl, at least by those who follow Canons 

 XLIII and XLV of the A. O. U. Code. There are, moreover, other and 

 perfectly good reasons for doubting that the bird mentioned by Hutchins was 

 a Horned Owl of any kind. Thus Samuel Hearne in his ' Journey from Prince 

 of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay, to the Northern Ocean,' published in London 

 in 179s, says, on page 402, that the Indians call the Snowy Owl "Wap-a-kee- 

 thow." According to Richardson, " the Indian word Wapacuthu means ' White 

 Owl,' and is applied also to the Strix nyctea, although the common term for the 

 latter is Wapo-ohoo." ^ 



In view of the considerations just mentioned it will be necessary, I think, to 

 take the name subarcticus Hoy for the whitish boreal form which has been hith- 

 erto so generally called arcticus and of which the Waltham specimen, above 

 mentioned, is, in my opinion, a dark-colored representative. 



1 W. Stone, American Naturalist, XXXI, 1897, 236. 



2 C. W. Richmond, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, XV, 1902, 86. 



' H. C. Oberholser, Proceedings of the United States National Museum, XXVII, 1904, 191. 

 ^ Ibid., 191-192. 



° J. Richardson, Swainson and Richardson, Fauna Boreali-Americana, Vol. II. The Birds. 1831, 

 86, foot-note. 



