CRESTED SHELDRAKE 229 



received information from Korea that the Crested Sheldrake is frequently observed or captured by 

 Japanese hunters in south Korea. But he has not yet succeeded in obtaining a second specimen. 



From such evidence it is necessary to give the species provisional rank, but I must say that I cannot 

 help still being skeptical about it. The difficulty remains that, supposing it to be merely a hybrid, 

 we canrfot imagine what its parents were (except that the Ruddy Sheldrake may have been one of 

 them) because it does not seem to be intermediate to any two known species of Anatidce. Mr. Kuroda 

 himself wrote me that if his Sheldrake was a hybrid between the Ruddy Sheldrake and the Falcated 

 Duck the color of the bill and feet should have been black. But they were in fact pale-colored, and 

 far from blackish. He adds, "My specimen is no doubt a female of this rare duck and the male has 

 not yet been seen by me, although the old Japanese ornithological book gives a description of both 

 sexes." 



Mr. George D. Wilder, of Peking University, in a letter written to Mr. Outram Bangs from China 

 in 1921, says he thinks that he saw a specimen of Kuroda's Sheldrake in the hands of a Chinese 

 hunter about twenty-five years ago. He had no idea of its rarity, and the Chinaman did not wish 

 to sell it. 



