Alauda dulcivox Hume

LeCROY, M. A. R. Y., 2003, TYPE SPECIMENS OF BIRDS IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. PART 5. PASSERIFORMES: ALAUDIDAE, HIRUNDINIDAE, MOTACILLIDAE, CAMPEPHAGIDAE, PYCNONOTIDAE, IRENIDAE, LANIIDAE, VANGIDAE, BOMBYCILLIDAE, DULIDAE, CINCLIDAE, TROGLODYTIDAE, AND MIMIDAE, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 278 (278), pp. 1-156 : 27

[ Alauda dulcivox Hume ]

‘‘ NEOTYPE ’’: AMNH 555411 , adult male, collected near Djarkent, on 10 March [Russian calendar, corrected by Vaurie to 23 March] 1900, by N. Zarudny. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: The convoluted history of the name Alauda dulcivox has recently been reviewed by Dickinson et al. (2001a: 102) and the reader is referred to that thorough study for information on names based on Hodgson specimens. Both Hume (1872) and Brooks (1873) credited Hodgson with the description of Alauda dulcivox ; however, the name appeared in Hodgson’s (1844) catalog without description. In his 1951 paper, Vaurie (1951c: 511) attributed the first description accompanying the name to Brooks (1873: 484) and, though noting that Brooks ‘‘did not select a type’’, agreed with ‘‘ Ticehurst (1922: 149) that Brooks gave an adequate description of the winter visitors that occur in the plains of northern India’’, birds that Vaurie considered ‘‘identical with specimens in comparative plumage from Russian Turkestan’’. Because Brooks did not name a type or fix a type locality, Vaurie proposed the above specimen as a neotype.

Later, Vaurie (1959: 55, footnote) discovered that Hume (1872: 39) had described Alauda dulcivox earlier, but did not think that Hume had specified a type either. Here he inexplicably refers to the above specimen as a ‘‘lectotype’’. However, Dickinson et al. (2001a: 102) have shown that Hume did designate a type, with a type locality. This specimen, not listed by Warren and Harrison (1971), has now been found by Michael Walters in the BMNH collection (BMNH Reg. no. 1887.78.1.3736). As the above neotype was intended to apply to Brooks’ description, not an original description, the neotype has no nomenclatural standing (ICZN, Art. 75.8).

Djarkent since 1942 has been called Panfilov ( Seltzer, 1962: 872, 1423) in what is now Kazakhstan, near the border with China. The coordinates of Panfilov are 44°10′N, 80°01′E (Times Atlas).