ALBERT

Description: The presence of five specimens of Gough Island Gallinules, Porphyriornis nesiotis comeri ALLEN, in the Zoological Gardens of Amsterdam originating from the remote Gough Island situated within the subantarctic confines of the South Atlantic Ocean, offered a favourable occasion for a study of these peculiar and rare birds. The Gough Island Gallinule is presently the only surviving representative of its species; the Tristan da Cunha form, P. nesiotis nesiotis (P. L. SCLATER), having been exterminated by man probably nearly a century ago. It belongs to a group of rails of which also the Moorhen or Common Gallinule, Gallinula chloropus, is a representative. From the latter species it differs among others by having greatly reduced powers of flight. One can wonder, however, about the degree of relationship between members of the genus Gallinula on the one hand and the Gough Island Gallinule on the other hand. In fact, the general appearance of the Gough Island Gallinule is that of a very stout, strongly legged Common Gallinule with a more skulking, less graceful gait. The birds in captivity in the Amsterdam Zoo were very pugnacious, a habit which has also been recorded by previous authors. When in pursuit of each other the birds frequently uttered a sharp, rattling call, which was also described by HOLDGATE (1958) from birds observed in Gough Island and transliterated as a rapid \xe2\x80\x9cchack-chack\xe2\x80\x9d. It seems that this call has not been recorded from any member of Gallinula chloropus. In spite of these differences RIPLEY (1954), in reviewing the \xe2\x80\x9cgenera\xe2\x80\x9d Gallinula, Porphyriornis and Ionornis, has doubted the justification of the use of a separate genus name for the Flightless Gallinules from Tristan and Gough Island, which he would prefer to treat as members of the genus Gallinula. This question will again be considered here.

Description: This is a report on a small collection of birds from the Tristan da Cunha group and Gough Island in the southern Atlantic Ocean made by Mr. N. SCHEER, Officer in Charge of the Weather Station at Tristan da Cunha in the years 1958\xe2\x80\x941960. The collection consists of 13 specimens from Tristan, 23 from Nightingale Island and 7 from Inaccessible Island, as well as 7 from Gough Island. A total of 22 species is represented. Field records by Mr. SCHEER have been added to the report; local names of most of the species, as noticed by Mr. SCHEER, have been given in quotation marks.\nConsidering the recent publications on the birds of these islands (BROEKHUYSEN & MACNAE, 1949; HAGEN, 1952; RAND, 1955; ELLIOTT, 1957) the collection contributes hardly any new facts to the knowledge of this interesting insular fauna. Still it contains members of any of the known species of land birds, including one specimen of the remarkable Inaccessible Island Flightless Rail (Atlantisia rogersi) and two of the rare Grosbeak Bunting from Nightingale Island ( Nesospiza wilkinsi winkinsi); only the Grosbeak Bunting from Inaccessible Island (N. w. dunnei) is lacking in the collection. Both the most abundant bird species in the islands (Great Shearwater, Puffinus gravis: probably at least two million breeding pairs, according to ROWAN, Ibis, 94, 1952, p. 97-121), and the scarcest (Grosbeak Bunting, Nesospiza wilkinsi: probably less than 100 breeding pairs, according to ELLIOTT, 1957) are represented in the collection by a few specimens.

Description: VAURIE (1961) in a recent review of the geographical races of the Common, or Eurasian, Buzzard (Buteo buteo (Linnaeus)) has found no evidence in favour of the recognition of a West Chinese or Tibetan mountain race of that species. Even less he considers it likely that the Buzzard nests in mountain forests in the Himalayas. In his conclusion he is at variance with PORTENKO (1929 : 644) who described a special race from the Cham region in East Tibet and mentioned specimens ascribed to this race from West China, Darjeeling, Sikkim, and the northwestern Himalaya. This race, originally described as Buteo japonicus saturatus, was re-named by PORTENKO in 1935 Buteo japonicus refectus on nomenclatorial reasons (Orn. Monatsb., 43 : 152). It was considered by HARTERT & STEINBACHER (1932\xe2\x80\x9438) as a synonym of Buteo buteo burmanicus Hume and by VAURIE (1961) as a synonym of Buteo buteo japonicus Temminck & Schlegel. Neither the question of the occurrence of Buzzards as breeding birds in the Sino-Himalayan mountains, nor the nomenclature of Buzzards actually collected in these regions has at present been solved. Still, the Buzzard is mentioned to breed in Tibet and Ladakh by both RIPLEY (1961) and ALI (1962) under the name of burmanicus, but not in Sikkim (ALI, 1962).\nFor zoogeographical reasons the occurrence of a Sino-Himalayan race of Common Buzzard would be most interesting since these mountain populations would enclose a Central Asiatic group of buzzards living in semi-deserts and cold steppes (B. rufinus and B. hemilasius). These Central Asiatic high plateau buzzards occur south of the forest-inhabiting Common Buzzards from Siberia and are sometimes considered as conspecific, or almost so, with the whole group of Buzzards of the species Buteo buteo. The breeding range and the characters of the mountain buzzards therefore have those noteworthy zoogeographical complications in that they would indicate an additional ecological basis for the subspecies formation in this group of raptors.

Description: "... speaking here as a taxonomist to taxonomists, I am certainly no less than respectful toward the noble art of classification" (L\xc3\xa9on Croizat, 1958, p. 119).\nIn considering a thorough systematic study a necessity before entering into zoogeographical theories, the author feels he may expect the full and sympathetic approval of Professor H. Boschma, to whom this paper is dedicated. Indeed, taxonomy or systematic zoology is one of the corner-stones of a sound building of zoogeography. The present paper, therefore, dealing with the taxonomy of wood owls and subsequent zoogeographical inferences probably is in line with the way of thinking of Boschma as a systematist.\nThe author will add a further perspective of systematic zoology by proposing a way leading to deeper understanding of owl taxonomy through laboratory experiments, which, however, he has not yet been able to carry out himself.\nJames Lee Peters (1940), the latest reviewer of the owls in his "Check-list of birds of the world", volume 4, was confronted with the problem of designing a systematic arrangement of the group of "wood owls", mediumlarge owls with big round heads without ear-tufts and usually dark eyes. In a preliminary paper Peters (1938) turned back to a classification of owls proposed by Sharpe (1875) and more or less strictly followed by Ridgway (1914), using the size and shape of the external ear as a character distinguishing between a "bubonine" and a "strigine" group of owls, ultimately giving these groups subfamily rank.