Loxigilla noctis var. propinqua Lawrence

LeCroy, Mary, 2012, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 10. Passeriformes: Emberizidae: Emberizinae, Catamblyrhynchinae, Cardinalinae, Thraupinae, And Tersininae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2012 (368), pp. 1-125 : 36

Loxigilla noctis var. propinqua Lawrence

Loxigilla noctis var. propinqua Lawrence, 1878a: 58 ( Guiana) .

Now Loxigilla noctis grenadensis (Cory, 1892) . See Hellmayr, 1938: 167, Paynter, 1970: 159–160, and Dickinson, 2003: 795.

SYNTYPES: AMNH 41219, adult male, ‘‘Guiana’’ (Br. Guiana on label), undated, and AMNH 41220, adult male, ‘‘Esequibo River,’’ Guyana, in the winter of 1876/1877, both collected by A.H. Alexander. From the George N. Lawrence Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Lawrence said that he examined three males in Alexander’s collection. The above two syntypes are the only specimens of propinqua that came to AMNH with the Lawrence Collection. The collecting locality has been questioned almost from the time the form was described ( Hellmayr, 1938: 167, footnote 1). Bond (1939: 5, and in Paynter, 1970b: 160, footnote 1) thought that they were collected in Grenada, when Alexander was on his way to Guyana. Most authors accept this synonymy. Lawrence’s label on AMNH 41219 has his pencilled measurements that are almost the same as those published in the original description: ‘‘L. 4 K, wing 2 5/8, tail 2, tarsi L (rather than 5/8).’’

A.H. Alexander was a taxidermist in New York City ( Wynne, 1969: 4). This serves to explain Lawrence’s statement that ‘‘Mr. Alexander obtained quite a number of this small species in Guiana, but he had disposed of most of them before they came under my notice….I was unable to find a female among the birds collected by him: this is easily accounted for; his object in making collections being to secure the more showy and saleable males.’’

Ridgway was the first systematist to work on the G. Baur collection from the Galapagos and he named many of the new forms. Later, Rothschild bought some 1100 of the Baur specimens, including Ridgway’s types (Roth- schild and Hartert, 1899: 85), and these specimens came to AMNH in 1932 with the purchase of the Rothschild Collection. Many of the specimens from the Baur Galapagos collection (see below) were marked ‘‘ex spirits.’’ This refers to specimens that were originally preserved in fluid but were later made into study skins. I have been unable to determine whether they were skinned before Ridgway worked on the collection or whether Rothschild had them prepared. To the difficulty of identifying the Galapagos finches to subspecies must be added the problem posed by the possibility that many were still wet when they were studied. Some of the specimens, but not all, bear numbers that are apparently Baur field numbers. I have found no mention of where a list of his numbers might be.