BLACK DUCK. 
and New Zealand. To emphasize this fact we use the above nomenclature. 
A. s. pelewensis is the only available name for the small race. Anas 
leucophrys Forster (1844) refers to the New Zealand form : Anas mulleri 
Bonaparte (1856) is a nomen nudum. There is, nevertheless, one difficulty, 
the specimens from the Kangean Islands, near Java, and those from 
Java, are also as small, or nearly as small, as those from the South 
Sea Islands, while those from Savu, Timor and Sumba are of the big 
race. The question therefore arises whether there are two small races, 
one in the Pacific and another on the Sunda Islands, or whether all 
these form one small race. Against the first possibility stands the fact 
that all those small birds are — ^at least so it seems to us, after having 
examined a few examples only ! — apparently alike, and with the second 
possibility the distribution does not seem to agree very well. At present 
we can, therefore, only emphasize the fact that there is, besides the 
larger Anas superciliosa superciliosa from New Zealand and Australia, 
a small race in the Pacific, which we call A. superciliosa pelewensis.^'’ 
In the Nov. Zool., Vol. XXI., October, 1914, Pothschild and Hartert 
dealing with a collection of birds from the Admiralty Islands under the name 
Anas superciliosa pelewensis write : “ $, $, wings 223, 224 mm. With 
regard to the differences of the smaller form we can only repeat what we have 
said in 1905. The two birds from Manus certainly belong to the smaller 
race — from their size and generally dark colour. This race has wings from 
220-242 mm. in length.” 
Then follows a criticism of my separation of A. s. rogersi, where the 
arguments scarcely coincide with the facts which could be recognised from 
a consideration of my data. I should have concluded that Messrs. Rothschild 
and Hartert would have decided that a re-examination of material was 
necessary, but these workers do not appear to have thought it worth while 
to attempt to improve upon their work of nine years earlier. They criticise 
, my quotation of a single wing length, but it should have been obvious that 
the measurement given was of the type specimen, and that specimen was 
taken as typical of the subspecies. They suggest that no series was measured, 
as no detailed list of measurements nor the number of specimens examined 
was given. This error (!) they themselves comrpit in the same paragraph that 
they comment upon my oversight. Yet I do not see the value of pages of 
measurements, as the mode of measuring is more or less peculiar to the 
individual, and Messrs. Rothschild and Hartert declare that they cannot make 
the same figures to a millimetre as I do. I have also found the same difficulty 
and consequently save paper by allowing each worker to make his own 
measurements and arrive at his own conclusions. If mine be correct their 
91 
