Drymodes superciliaris colcloughi Mathews, 1914

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 : 9-10

Drymodes superciliaris colcloughi Mathews

Drymodes superciliaris colcloughi Mathews, 1914b: 97 (Roper River, Northern Territory).

Now Drymodes superciliaris superciliaris Gould, 1850 . See Schodde and Mason, 1999: 390–391 and the discussion below.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 585473 , adult male, collected on the ‘‘ Roper River , Northern Territory’ ’ (?), Australia, in ‘‘September, 1910’’ (?), by Michael J. Colclough. From the Mathews Collection (no. 18461) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews did not say how many specimens he had examined, but he described the form as ‘‘being much redder on the back and entirely reddish­buff on the under­surface’’. This is the only specimen of Drymodes cataloged by Mathews among a group of specimens obtained by him from the QM and the only Mathews specimen said to be from Northern Territory that came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection. Hartert (1931: 49) commented: ‘‘This specimen looks very distinct, but the ‘reddish buff’ underside is obviously dirty, the rufous colour being stained! The specimen is, however, also more reddish on the upperside, and therefore may be a distinct subspecies—though it is peculiar that only one skin was obtained ; at least it appears so, but Mathews does not inform one how many specimens he examined, a most inconvenient, and sometimes misleading omission.’’ This has proven to be true in this case.

Storr (1967: 70) pointed out the problematic collecting locality, but Parker (1970: 120) called attention to the presence of two additional specimens in the Queensland Museum, cataloged in February 1911, along with other specimens collected by Colclough on the Roper River. Storr (1977: 75) then accepted the Roper River as the collecting locality. Parker (1970: 120) noted that only the female of the two specimens in the Queensland Museum bore a catalog number and that the second specimen was a mounted specimen without a number. When he found that the Queensland Museum catalog listed a male and a female under number 011/19, he assumed that the unnumbered mounted specimen was the male. However, the field label of the AMNH male holotype bears the Queensland Museum number 011/19, and it seems more likely to me that this is the second bird cataloged with the Colclough collection and that the mounted bird is indeed unnumbered and was probably not part of Colclough’s collection. Both Parker (1970: 120) and Bennett (1983: 105) considered that the AMNH specimen was the holotype, and I agree. Apparently the female in the Queensland Museum was never in Mathews’ possession.

Schodde and Mason (1999: 391) did not accept the Roper River as the provenance of this form, noting that Colclough passed through Cape York en route to the Roper River and ‘‘included in his manuscript list of Roper River birds a number of other species known only from northeast Australia, e.g. Ptilinopus superbus (Temminck), Podargus papuensis Quoy and Gaimard and Malurus amabilis Gould’’. They noted that the AMNH type differs little from Cape York specimens of rufous morphs and that the Queensland Museum female matches pale morphs from Cape York. Perhaps the best solution is to consider Drymodes superciliaris colcloughi a synomym of D. s. superciliaris , with the collecting locality highly questionable. For a discussion of the familial position of Drymodes , see under D. brunneopygia victoriae .

In addition to the field label (bearing the QM stamp and number), the Rothschild Museum label (indicating the specimen was from the Mathews Collection), and the Rothschild type label (bearing the Mathews catalog number), the AMNH holotype also bears the yellow Mathews ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it was figured in Mathews Birds of Australia (1921: pl. 429, opposite p. 215).