CORRESPONDENCE. 387 
sion at the time, in the statement which I made concerning the box 
in question. 
With further reference to the birds of South Albemarle, Dr. Baur 
makes the following singular statement: ‘Ridgway enumerates 
thirty-five species from Albemarle, and remarks: ‘As Dr. Baur and 
his associate, Mr. Adams, collected more than forty species in South 
Albemarle, there are at least twenty-five species found there which 
are as yet undetermined.’ I cannot support this statement. Ridg- 
` way himself names thirty-three species collected by us.” Concern- 
ing this I have only to say that reference to pages 469 and 470 of 
my paper will show that it is wholly unwarranted. The list of thirty- 
five species, thirty-three of them collected by Baur and Adams, given 
by me on page 469, is plainly not a list of birds of South Albemarle 
but of Albemarle Island as a whole. On page 470 of my paper are 
separate lists for “ East Albemarle, opposite Cowley Island” and 
“South Albemarle,” both copied from lists furnished me by Dr. 
Baur, the originals of which I still possess. The South Albemarle 
birds, as enumerated by Dr. Baur, number sixteen species. Having 
no reason to doubt Dr. Baur’s statement that he’'and Mr. Adams 
“got over forty species of birds from S. Albemarle,” and since 
“over forty species” would necessarily be equivalent to at least 
forty-one, and since sixteen subtracted from forty-one would leave 
“at least twenty-five species ” to be accounted for, it would appear 
that my statement was strictly in accordance with the facts as known 
tome. , Dr. Baur has named nine of the species which were unknown 
to me; therefore, there should be still “at least” sixteen uniden- 
tified species of South Albemarle birds. Not one of these nine 
additional species was included in the two lists of Albemarle birds 
which Dr. Baur sent me, nor were they contained in the collection 
which he sent for my examination. There is good reason, therefore, 
why they were omitted from my list. 
It is difficult to understand why Dr. Baur should have criticised 
my remarks concerning the large white heron from Albemarle, given 
in my paper as doubtfully Herodias egretta, but which Dr. Baur is 
positive is that species. The doubts which I expressed as to the 
bird being that species were based upon Dr. Baur’s description of 
its size (“as large as, perhaps larger than, 4. herodias”), which 
certainly cannot apply to Æ. egretta. The latter is conspicuously 
smaller than 4. herodias (only about one-third its bulk’). There- 
1 Audubon gives the weight of Æ. egretta as two and a half pounds; A. kero- 
dias often weighs as much as seven pounds, 
