Calornis solomonensis Ramsay, 1879

McAllan, Ian A. W., 2016, On Some Types of Birds (Aves) from the Solomon Islands Named by Edward Pierson Ramsay, Records of the Australian Museum 68 (1), pp. 31-43 : 41-42

[ Calornis solomonensis Ramsay, 1879 , Nature 20: 125.]

[= Aplonis cantoroides (Gray, 1862) ]

Longmore (1991) noted a type of this taxon in the Australian Museum. However, the specimen so designated, A.3862, is an immature bird with black streaking on a white undersurface. Ramsay’s original description noted that solomonensis was “a uniform bright steel green” which strongly suggests that an adult bird was used in the description. No such bird is found in the known surviving Cockerell material. Ramsay did not describe this taxon in his first 1879 Proceedings paper, though he listed Calornis cantoroides and noted both adult male and “female” [sic = immature] birds.

In summary, type specimens collected by Cockerell and named by Ramsay were dispersed to six museums, with significant numbers being in the Australian Museum, Museum Victoria and the Macleay Museum as shown in Table 3 .

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Over the years I have had considerable help in the preparation in this paper from the staff of the various museums in which these specimens are deposited. These include: Walter Boles , Jan Brazier and Rose Docker (Australian Museum), Les Christidis , Wayne Longmore and Rory O’Brien (Museum Victoria), Graeme Phipps , Stuart Norrington and Julian Holland (Macleay Museum), Heather Janetzki (Queensland Museum) and Michael Walters (The Natural History Museum, Tring). Carlo Violani , Murray Bruce , Giorgio Chiozzi , Enrico Borgo , Giuliano Doria , Pietro Passerin d’Entrèves and Claudio Pulcher were of great help during a visit to the museums in Milan , Genoa and Turin during August and September 1994 and in answering my ongoing enquiries. Assistance was also received from the staff of the Mitchell Library , State Library of New South Wales and Macquarie University Library. In particular I thank Les Christidis for employing me at Museum Victoria in mid-1995 specifically to look for type specimens in the collection. Useful comments on the manuscript were made by Walter Boles, Wayne Longmore, Gerloff Mees, Harry Parnaby and two anonymous referees .