Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 12. Passeriformes: Ploceidae, Sturnidae, Buphagidae, Oriolidae, Dicruridae, Callaeidae, Grallinidae, Corcoracidae, Artamidae, Cracticidae, Ptilonorhynchidae, Cnemophilidae, Paradisaeidae, And Corvidae
Author
Lecroy, Mary
Department of Vertebrate Zoology (Ornithology) American Museum of Natural History
text
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
2014
2014-12-30
2014
393
1
165
journal article
7639
10.1206/885.1
48769858-fe3b-415b-9ac8-3feeb42a9bae
0003-0090
4629954
Ptilonorhynchus violaceus dulciae
Mathews
Ptilonorhynchus violaceus dulciae
Mathews, 1912a: 438
(
Queensland
)
.
Now
Ptilonorhynchus violaceus violaceus
(Vieillot, 1816)
. See
Mathews, 1913a: 308
;
1926: 297–304
;
Hartert, 1929a: 55
;
Mayr and Jennings, 1952: 5– 6
;
Gilliard, 1969: 344–354
;
Schodde and Mason, 1999: 630–631
; and
Frith and Frith, 2004: 362– 365
;
2009a: 400–401
.
HOLOTYPE
:
AMNH 679418
, adult male, collected in ‘‘
Queensland
,’’ undated, by Cockerell. From the
Mathews Collection
(no. 4999) via the Rothschild Collection.
COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews cited his catalog number of the
holotype
and gave the wing measurement of the type as
166 mm
. By 1913,
Mathews (1913a: 308)
already considered
dulciae
a synonym of
P. v. violaceus
. The
holotype
bears, in addition to Mathews and Rothschild type labels, a label from Museum Boucard, and a Mathews ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it served as the model for
Mathews (1926
: pl. 581, opp. p. 297; text p. 298), where he said that the figured adult [male] was the type of
dulciae
, although there he gave the wing measurement as
171 mm
. On page 304 he listed
dulciae
, but rather cryptically noted that he had admitted only two subspecies in his 1913 ‘‘List’’ (
Mathews, 1913a: 308
), where
dulciae
was synonymized.
Hartert (1929a: 55)
pointed out the discrepancy in reported measurements and the synonymy of
dulciae
with nominate
violaceus
.
The provenance of this specimen does not allow more precise determination of the collecting locality. As
Hartert (1929a: 55)
noted, the label bearing the locality ‘‘Queensland’’ is printed as being from the Museum Boucard (not Boncard). In Mathews’ catalog, the specimen was listed as coming from the dealer Rosenberg and cataloged on
7 September 1910
. Boucard died in 1904 (
Anonymous, 1905b
), and both Rothschild and Mathews are known to have bought Boucard specimens from Rosenberg after Boucard’s death.
Whittell (1954: 154–157)
provided an astounding amount of information on J.F. Cockerell and his father, J.T. Cockerell, who collected widely in
Australia
and other parts of the southwest Pacific in the late 19th and early 20th century, but given the undated label, no further information on the exact collecting locality of the
type
of
dulciae
is obtainable, nor is it clear which of the Cockerells collected it.
In
his original description,
Mathews
gave the range of
dulciae
as ‘‘
South
Queensland
and
North
New South Wales
.’’
No
other
Mathews
specimens of this bowerbird in
AMNH
are from south
Queensland
. Howev- er, there are three from northern
New South Wales
, and these are considered
paratypes
of
dulciae
:
Tweed River
,
AMNH 679377
(Mathews no. 7003), male,
May 1893
, from
T. Thorpe
;
AMNH 679378
(7002), male,
May 1895
, from
T. Thorpe
;
AMNH 679385
(5000), female,
August 1907
, from
P. Schrader. All
were cataloged by
Mathews
before the publication of
dulciae
.
The
following specimen is a possible
paratype
, but I did not find it in
Mathews’
catalog:
Port Macquarie
,
AMNH 679406
, male,
30 November 1909
, from
Tost
&
Rohu
(Sydney dealers)
.