Remarks.—No specimens of the Rufous-fronted Fantail of Yap have been seen by me. On the basis of published descriptions and comments, it appears that the bird is subspecifically distinct from the forms in the Marianas but shows close relationships to them. R. r. versicolor has the chin and throat white; R. r. saipanensis has the chin and part of the throat white and a heavy, white line in the malar region; R. r. mariae has the chin and only a small amount of the throat white and a thinner, white malar stripe; R. r. uraniae has only a small amount of white present on the chin and a very thin, white line in the malar region.
Rhipidura rufifrons kubaryi Finsch
Rufous-fronted Fantail
Rhipidura kubaryi Finsch, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1875 (1876), p. 644. (Type locality, Ponapé.)
Rhipidura kubaryi Finsch, Journ. Mus. Godeffroy, 12. 1876, pp. 17, 29, pl. 2, fig. 2 (Ponapé); idem, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1877 (1878), p. 779 (Ponapé); Nehrkorn, Journ. f. Ornith., 1879, p. 403 (Ponapé); Finsch, Journ. f. Ornith., 1880, p. 289 (Ponapé); idem, Ibis, 1881, pp. 110, 112, 115 (Ponapé); Schmeltz and Krause, Ethnogr. Abth. Mus. Godeffroy, 1881, p. 281 (Ponapé); Tristram, Cat. Birds, 1889, p. 198 (Ponapé); Wiglesworth, Abhandl. und Ber. Zool. Mus. Dresden, no. 6, 1890-1891 (1891), p. 20 (Ponapé); Büttikofer, Notes Leyden Mus., 15, 1893, p. 76 (Ponapé); Matschie, Journ. f. Ornith., 1901, pp. 112, 113 (Ponapé); Dubois, Syn. Avium, 1, 1902, p. 277 (Ponapé); Takatsukasa and Kuroda, Tori, 1, 1915, pp. 54, 64 (Ponapé); Wetmore, in Townsend and Wetmore, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 63, 1919, p. 204 (Ponapé); Kuroda, in Momiyama, Birds Micronesia, 1922, p. 65 (Ponapé); Yamashina, Tori, 7, 1932, p. 403 (Ponapé); Hand-list Japanese Birds, rev., 1932, p. 176 (Ponapé); Mayr, Proc. 6th Pacific Sci. Congr., 4, 1941, p. 204 (Ponapé); Hand-list Japanese Birds, 3d ed., 1942, p. 196 (Ponapé).
Rhipidura kubarii Sharpe, Cat. Birds British Mus., 4, 1879, p. 314 (Ponapé); Bolau, Mitteil. Naturhist. Mus. Hamburg, 1898, p. 55 (Ponapé).
Rhipdura rufifrons kubaryi Mayr, Birds Southwest Pacific, 1945, p. 295 (Ponapé); Mayr and Moynihan, Amer. Mus. Novit., no. 1321, 1946, pp. 3, 6, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16 (Ponapé).
Geographic range.—Micronesia: Caroline Islands—Ponapé.
Characters.—Adult: Upper parts smoky olivaceous-brown, less smoky on rump and upper tail-coverts; anterior forehead and supraloral region narrowly edged with white; lores and orbital ring black; auriculars brown; feathers of chin and malar region tipped with white; rest of chin and throat black, lower feathers of throat edged with white; abdomen dark olivaceous-brown with whitish mid-portion anteriorily; sides and under tail-coverts ashy, the latter broadly tipped with white; wings and tail dark, tail tipped with white and outer rectrices more broadly so; axillaries and under wing-coverts gray, broadly tipped with white; bill and feet black, mandible basally whitish; iris dark brown.