Meliornis diemenensis Mathews

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 : 144

Meliornis diemenensis Mathews

Meliornis diemenensis Mathews, 1910b: 100 (Tasmania) .

Now Phylidonyris novaehollandiae canescens (Latham, 1790) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 428, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 311–312, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 667–668.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 692098 , female, collected in Tasmania, Australia, in November 1874, and obtained from R.H.W. Leach. From the Mathews Collection (no. 4585) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews did not designate a type in the original description, nor have I found that he designated one subsequently. The specimen intended as the type by Mathews has a Mathews Collection label with his catalog number and ‘‘Type’’ written by him. It also bears Mathews and Rothschild type labels and was so cataloged when the Rothschild Collection came to AMNH. In order to validate Mathews’ intention that AMNH 692098 be the type of Meliornis diemenensis , I hereby designate it the lectotype.

Apparently, Mathews obtained a number of specimens of this form from Richard H.W. Leach ( Whittell, 1954: 417) but it is uncertain whether Leach collected them or acquired them from others. There are three Mathews specimens in AMNH with no data other than ‘‘ Tasmania,’’ two of which I found in Mathews’ catalog as obtained from Leach. I consider all three specimens paralectotypes: AMNH 692099 , 692100 , 692101 ; the two Mathews catalog nos. are 4420 and 4645. No. 4645 has the date ‘‘’76’’ and ‘‘ Falmouth’ ’ written in Mathews’ catalog. Two additional specimens, AMNH 692096 and 692097, were from the Mathews Collection , but I have no information on when they came into Mathews’ possession. AMNH 692096 , male, from the Westbury District , Tasmania, bears an original label with the collector as C.G.H. Lloyd (no. 296) and a second tag that is a printed card with H. Stuart Dove’s name. The label on AMNH 692097 bears the number ‘‘354’’ and an unsigned note: ‘‘given me by Mr. Elliot, Hobart, 16 Dec. 1909.’’ Hartert has written on the Rothschild label on this specimen ‘‘ C.G.H. Lloyd, coll.’’ and ‘‘ ♀.’’ According to R. Prys-Jones (personal commun.), they apparently were not from the Lloyd specimens presented to BMNH and noted by Whittell (1954: 451). I was unable to determine when or from whom Mathews acquired them and do not consider them paralectotypes .

Mathews (1912d: 100) found that the name S ylvia canescens Latham, 1790, applied to the Tasmanian form of this species, and that his name diemenensis was a synonym (see also, Stresemann, 1950: 71).