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 92 THE CONDOR Vol. XX species upon the breeding grounds, at least in that portion included in the Chirtcahua IVlountains, Arizona, is very much later. In this range o mountains, about fifteen miles distant from Rodeo, the Stephens Whip-poor-will is a fairly common summer vilsitant to the oak region, but I did not record it there during 1917 until May 21, this at Paradise Post Offtce.--ASTIN PAUL SIT, Rio Hondo, Texas, December 9, 1917. Some Pu9nacious 0oots.--Our boat house rests in a cut opening out of Butte Slough, in Colusa County, California. Between the end of the boat house and the current of the slough, there are sixty or eighty feet of still water; three Mud Hens (Fulica ameri- cana) have taken posses, sion of this spot. They have grown quite tame; not only do they come up to the boat house for their food, but when hungry swim up. and are clamorously insistent with their "put-put-put". The men have frequently t01d me that they were murderous fighters against their own kind, and one day I was a witness of such a fight. A strange Mud Hen swam from the creek into the quiet water. The firat of the three to see him attacked the stranger at once, "putting". harshly, and the intruder gave battle without the slightest attempt to re- treat. They pecked at each other savagely. The other two boat house Mud Hens swam up to the fray, one of them joining in, the other, the smallest of the three and probably the female, simply looking on. In time they pecked the strange Mud Hen into a state of exhaustion. It was manifestly too weak to fly, but tried to make its escape by swimming. They followed it up, and one actually stood on its body while the other held its head un- der the water until it was dead. When satisfied of this, they left it. The men tell me that nearly every day they murder one of their kind in this man-' her, and yet oddly enough they pay not the slightest attention to crippled ducks which drift down the current and often take refuge in the same cut. It would, of course, be perfectly easy for the Mud Hen which is attacked to escape by flight, but in no instance, my men say, has one ever attempted to do so. The third and smaller Mud Hen never takes part in the fight, but is always an in- terested spectator. Once a battle began when only one of the boat house Mud Hens was present, but its call soon brought the other two, which had drifted down the creek, and they came back to the rescue flying. It seemed to me to be a curious phase of pugnacity, considering the gregarious abits of the btrd.--F. W. HENSHAW, an Francisco, January 6, 1918. The Name of the American Barn Swailow.--In a recent paper enUtled"'The Birds of the Anamba Islands" (Bull. U.S. Nat. Mus., no. 98, June 30, 1917, pp. vq-75, 2 pls.), Dr. H. C. Oberholser discusses the relationships of the American Barn Swallow with the closely similar forms of the Old World. He concludes that intergradation is complete through several intervening races between Hirundo rustica, the common Swallow of Eu- rope, and our own Barn Swallow, and hence adopts the trinomial form of designation for the latter--Hirundo rustica erythrogastris. Also the race palmeri once proposed by me from Alaska is not deemed tenable. With regard to both ontenttons the supporting facts presented seem to me now conclusive. In the spelling of the subspecific name of the American form, however, I believe Oberholser to be wrong, and erythrogaster should be the proper spelling, not erythrogas- iris. The term rythrogaster cnnot be considered an adjective. It is a Greek noun, re- taining its own gender and case when Latinized. Hitundo is feminine, but that should not affect the ending of the third term of the trinomial the case of which Is, in this in- stance, nominative. If there were any doubt about this, final appeal to the original de- scriber ought to settle it. The bird was described as Hirundo erythrogaster, which shows well enough the writer's intention. Te name of our Barn Swallow ought to stand as Hirundo rustica erythrogaster. I am indebted to Professor W. A. Merrill, of the Latin department of the University of California, for pertinent information in connection with my present enquiry. There seems to be a tendency even yet towards unnecessarily tampering with the slelling of names as originally proposed by describers. In this regard I wish also to protest against Oberholser's misquotatlon of my name (uiraca caeruea saicarius, eraend- ing it to . c. salicaria (Auk, vol. 34, April, 1917, p. 204). aicarius was employed as a noun, obviously.--& GRINNELL, Museum of ertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, California, Jan- uary 9, 1918.