Petrocossyphus Gourcyi Brehm

Mary, Croy, History, Bulletin Of The American Museum Of Natural, At, Central Park West, Street, Th, York, New & Ny, 2005, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History. Part 6. Passeriformes: Prunellidae, Turdidae, Orthonychidae, Timaliidae, Paradoxornithidae, Picathartidae, And Polioptilidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2005 (292), pp. 1-132 : 29-30

Petrocossyphus Gourcyi Brehm

Petrocossyphus Gourcyi Brehm, 1831: 370 (lebt in Italien und Oestreich).

Now Monticola saxatilis (Linnaeus, 1766) . See Hartert, 1918a: 34, and Clement, 2000: 195.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 457632 , adult male, captured with a female near Trieste , 458399N, 138479E (Times Atlas), Italy, died in captivity 20 June 1826. From the Brehm Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Brehm did not say how many specimens he had. but the above specimen was designated the lectotype by Hartert (1918a: 34). It is one of two specimens now in AMNH labeled gourcyi by Brehm and collected before the description was published. The second specimen is paralectotype AMNH 457633, a male collected at Triest on 4 October 1826.

According to Hartert (1918a: 34), this lec­ totype had been in the possession of Count Gourcy­Droitaumont when it died.

Petrocossyphus polyglottus Brehm Petrocossyphus polyglottus Brehm, 1831: 370

(Sie lebt on der Südseite der Alpen, wahrsch­

einlich bei Triest).

Now Monticola saxatilis (Linnaeus, 1766) . See

Hartert, 1918a: 33, and Clement, 2000: 195.

? LECTOTYPE: AMNH 457630 , adult male, died 11 November 1824, in Vienna. From the Brehm Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Otto Kleinschmidt had gone to Renthendorf in 1896 to examine the Brehm Collection before its purchase by Rothschild ( Hartert, 1901b: 39). At that time he had found the Brehm label bearing the name Petrocossyphus polyglottus in Brehm’s hand loose in the collection and had matched it with the above specimen. A note to this effect, signed by Kleinschmidt and dated August 1896, is attached to the skin. Hartert (1918a: 33) thought that this was correctly done, that the specimen matched Brehm’s description, and that it had probably been a cage bird in the possession of Count Gourcy­ Droitaumont like the previous form. The bird is sexed on the label as an adult winter male and is in first winter plumage with many feathers showing pale buff tips with darker subterminal spots or bars, the head is blue, and there is a small amount of white on the back. It had been mounted and had possessed glass eyes, now missing. It is the only Brehm specimen labeled polyglottus , now in AMNH, that was collected early enough to have been Brehm’s type. Nevertheless, there remains a question about reattachment of the label.

Molecular data on Monticola saxatilis are reported by Wink et al. (2002a, 2002b).

Monticola cyanus transcaspicus Hartert

Monticola cyanus transcaspicus Hartert, 1909b: 43 (Sirax) .

Now Monticola solitarius longirostris (Blyth, 1847) . See Ripley, 1964: 139, and Clement, 2000: 206–207.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 577118 , unsexed [male plumage], collected at Serakhs (5 Sirax), 368349N, 618149E (Times Atlas), Turkmenia,

on 21 March 1905, by an unknown collector. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: The holotype, bearing the Rothschild type label, was identified in the original description by the number 19111, which is on the Rothschild Collection label but not on the original label. As Rothschild specimens were not routinely numbered, this appears to have been derived from the date as given on the original label: The ‘‘19’’ and ‘‘05’’ of the year were separated by the day and month written as a fraction. This resulted in the ‘‘19’’ of the year being juxtaposed to the ‘‘III’’ for March. Hartert (1920: 475) not­ ed that this date was probably based on the Russian calendar and that the specimen had been bought from Schlüter.

Hartert did not say how many specimens he examined. There are three paratypes from the Rothschild Collection apparently collect­ ed by the same person (the date is written in the same distinctive way as that of the type, and they were collected within a few days of each other, but the Rothschild label does not bear a number derived from this): AMNH 577119 , 27 March 1905, Sirax ; AMNH 577120 , 4 March 1905, and AMNH 577121 , 14 March 1905, Feruse nr. Aschabad .