Melethreptus (sic) atricapillus

Mary, 2011, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae And Meliphagidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (348), pp. 1-193 : 110

Melethreptus (sic) atricapillus minnie Mathews

Melethreptus (sic) atricapillus minnie Mathews, 1913b: 192 (Central Queensland).

Now Melithreptus brevirostris pallidiceps Mathews, 1912 . See Salomonsen, 1967: 395, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 279–281, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 673– 674.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 691687 , female, collected at Minnie Downs , 25.05S, 145.53E (Times Atlas), Queensland, Australia, on 11 January 1882, probably by Carl Lumholtz. From the Mathews Collection (no. 14600) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews only gave ‘‘ Central Queensland’ ’ as the type locality ; subsequently, he ( Mathews, 1913a: 261) listed Minnie Downs as the type locality. Even though his catalog number is written on both his and the Rothschild type label, it was not included in the original description. This seems to be the only specimen that Mathews considered when naming this form ; I consider it the holotype. It was part of the collection that Robert Collett , ZMO, sent to Mathews (1912b: 25), which included specimens collected by C. Lumholtz and K. Dahl ; the date of 1882 on this specimen indicates that Lumholtz was the collector as he was collecting in Queensland at that time .

Mathews did have a second specimen from Queensland, now AMNH 691688 (Mathews no. 2997), unsexed, from ‘‘Athelstone,’’ as written on the label by Mathews. The original label is missing from this specimen and no indication of the Australian state follows ‘‘Athelstone,’’ although someone has later pencilled in a ‘‘Q’’ on the Rothschild label. If Queensland is correct, the locality should probably have been Athelstane. Mathews did acquire the specimen early enough, but there is nothing to indicate that he considered it when naming minnie, especially as he misspelled the locality both on the label and in his catalog.

Salomonsen (1967: 394) listed minnie as a synonym of M. b. brevirostris , but see Schodde and Mason (1999: 280–281) for a discussion of the subspecies of M. brevirostris .