A Yuma Rattler. 
El Centro, Cal., Oct. 12.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The accompanying photograph is of 
a two-headed desert rattlesnake killed near 
Yuma on Sept. 28 last by James Maxey. It may 
interest you. Allen Kelly. 
The Passing of an Ancient Name. 
To gunners of the eastern half of North 
America no one of our wildfowl is better known 
than the black duck or black mallard. Though 
one of the so-called fresh water or non-diving 
ducks, it is more abundant along the seaboard 
than in the interior, yet is found in some num¬ 
bers in the Mississippi Valley, and, indeed, as 
far as Kansas (Coues) and Eastern Nebraska. 
The gunners who know it best have a warm 
admiration for it, credit it with great wari¬ 
ness and sagacity, and many even declare that 
it possesses powers of scent so keen that it will 
not venture near the concealed shooter if the 
wind blows from him to it. Its possession of 
this last named acuteness of sense may be 
doubted. 
Yet of late years an attack has been made 
on the black duck in the very house of its 
friends, and by one of its greatest admirers, 
one of our keenest sportsmen and best ornitholo¬ 
gists, William Brewster. Partly through his in¬ 
strumentality its ancient name, borne for more 
than a century, has been taken from it, and it 
has been designated among ornithologists by a 
new name, strange to all gunners and difficult 
and tongue-twisting to the vernacular speech. 
The tale is a sad one and we verily believe that 
no one regrets the change more than Mr. 
Brewster. 
The name Anas obscura, dusky duck, was 
given to this bird by Gmelin in his Systema 
Natures in the year 1788, and for more than a 
hundred years the bird bore that name and the 
title became firmly fixed in the minds of all 
it! friends. But in the year 1902 Mr. Brewster 
described a new subspecies of black duck from 
Northern waters under the name Anas obscura 
rubripes. This subspecies is characterized by a 
yellow bill, coral red feet, greater size and other 
slight differences. Some years after this it was 
discovered that the specific name obscura had 
been applied by the naturalist Pontoppidan to 
an Old World duck, and therefore, by the laws 
of priority adopted by the American Ornitholo¬ 
gists Union, could no longer be used for our 
black duck. This left Mr. Brewster’s name, 
rubripes , as the oldest specific term for the 
black duck, and left what has been regarded as 
the ordinary black duck—the slightly smaller 
bird with the greenish bill and brown legs—with¬ 
out a name. It fell now to Mr. Brewster to 
supply a name for this unfortunate fowl, which 
every year was making its journeys north and 
south over the land, a nameless foundling, an 
avian maverick, Anas innominata. He called it 
Anas rubripes tristis, the subspecific name being 
given in allusion on one hand to its modest 
colors, and on the other to the melancholy fact 
that its old-time name had been taken from it. 
But this is not all. 
In the October Auk Dr. Jonathan Dwight, 
Jr., another eminent ornithologist, has an article 
in which he expresses the belief—and advances 
strong reasons for this belief—that the red- 
legged duck of Brewster is merely the 'fully. 
YUMA RATTLER. 
adult black duck and that the smaller brown¬ 
legged black duck, with which gunners are 
more familiar, is the young red-legged duck 
which has not yet attained its full size and 
highest coloring. Dr. Dwight makes out a 
strong case in behalf of his views, but no 
doubt Mr. Brewster will have something to say 
on the point. 
The black duck group, which is found from 
Hudson Bay south to Mexico, includes several 
Southern species but slightly known to gun¬ 
ners. Those found in the United States are 
described in “American Duck Shooting,” pages 
93 to X02. 
The gunner standing in his blind and scan¬ 
ning the wide horizon sees suddenly appear out 
of the far gray sky two black spots which grow 
larger as they approach. He crouches behind 
his shelter and with his gun at a ready waits 
for them to draw near. As they swing into the 
wind he slowly rises and puts his gun on the 
birds, pulling one trigger after the other, and 
then as one bird splashes into the water and the 
other unharmed climbs skyward, he mutters to 
himself, “Pair of old black ducks, b’gosh.” So 
in the speech of the people it will be black ducks 
that are shot at and that fall or fly away un¬ 
touched, precisely as if the good old name Anas 
obscura still looked out in bold faced type from 
the white pages of the A. O. U. check list. 
Nelson’s North American Rabbits. 
Of the constant—but too little known—excel¬ 
lent work of the Biological Survey perhaps none 
is more important than the publication at irregu¬ 
lar intervals of the volumes entitled “North 
American Fauna.” These issues are of vary¬ 
ing size, but of unvarying excellence and im¬ 
portance, and certain observations made by- 
workers under the direction of Dr. C. Hart 
Merriam, chief of the Survey. Within the year 
three of these volumes have appeared; one, 
Edw. A. Preble’s “Biological Investigation of 
the Athabasca-McKenzie Region,” another W. 
H. Osgood’s “Revision of a Genus of Field 
Mice,” Peromyscus, and last E. W. Nelson’s 
most interesting and valuable paper on the 
“Rabbits of North America.” 
Mr. Nelson is well known as one of our fore¬ 
most field naturalists and is especially well in¬ 
formed as to birds and mammals of the coun¬ 
try. His work has extended from the Arctic 
to the tropics; it has everywhere been good and 
commands the respect and admiration of all 
students. No one is better fitted than he to 
take up the study of this group, and he gives 
us a vast amount of new systematic knowledge. 
In the preparation of the monograph he has ex¬ 
amined more than 5,500 specimens coming from 
all parts of the land, and from this abundant 
material he recognizes ninety-seven spee'es and 
subspecies of rabbits. In the case of only two 
of three of these is there any possibility that 
additional material may modify his conclusions. 
When Dr. Allen’s monograph of the North 
American hares appeared thirty-two years ago, 
the material for study was so limited that only 
eighteen species and varieties were recognized. 
Hares and rabbits have a world wide distri¬ 
bution, except that they are not native to Aus¬ 
tralia nor to many oceanic islands. They have 
a great value as food, while on the other hand 
they commit an enormous amount of damage to 
agriculture, devouring crops, girdling fruit trees 
and destroying young plants in nurseries and 
tender seedlings in forests. So destructive do 
