Title
Publication Date
7-9-1954
Series Number
19
Abstract
Recently the Yale Peabody Museum has been fortunate enough to secure a small collection of birds from Gough Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, south of Tristan da Cunha. These specimens were secured through the intercession of Mr. R. Upton, now of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, formerly of Tristan da Cunha. It is of peculiar interest that these birds should come to Yale, as one of the first collections of birds from Gough, secured by Mr. George Comer, was formerly in the possession of Mr. G. E. Verrill, son of Professor A. E. Verrill of Yale; reported upon in the Proceedings of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences (1895, 9:430-477), and certainly, at least, passed through the doors of the Peabody Museum. Except for the type of the Gough Island gallinule, now in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the whereabouts of the Comer collection at the present time remains a mystery. The Museum's grateful thanks are due to Mr. Wilmarth S. Lewis and to Mr. W. Sheffield Cowles for help in securing these interesting specimens. I am also grateful to Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy of the American Museum for showing me specimens in his care.