Pentholaea baucis Hartlaub

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 : 24-25

Pentholaea baucis Hartlaub

Pentholaea baucis Hartlaub, 1887: 318 (Babira and Rimo) .

Now Myrmecocichla albifrons clericalis (Hartlaub, 1882) . See Hartert, 1920: 472, and Keith et al., 1992: 551.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 581535 , adult male, collected at Babira , 028329N, 318279E ( Chapin, 1954: 643), Uganda, on 16 November 1882, by Emin Bey (5 Emin Pasha) (no. 301). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Hartlaub, in his original description of this taxon, questioned its validity. Nevertheless, he gave a complete description based on three specimens (an adult male and two immature males), but he did not designate a type. Hartert (1920: 472), citing Emin’s unique field number, designated the above specimen the lectotype. The measurements given by Hartlaub in the description match the actual measurements of the above specimen, but not the measurements given by Emin on the field label. Those were probably made on the bird before skinning.

Three Emin specimens that came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection are marked baucis in what is apparently Hartlaub’s hand. Hartlaub’s second specimen, paralectotype AMNH 581537, is an immature male from Rimo collected on 10 October 1882. The collecting date was incorrectly copied onto the Rothschild label as 10 November, but reference to the original field label shows that 10 October is correct.

The third specimen, now AMNH 581536, an immature male from Babira, was collected on 16 November 1882. This date does not agree with the date of 10 November given by Hartlaub in the description. It does, however, have the white in the wing patches more heavily marked with black and more flecks of white in the forehead than the other immmature, as noted by Hartlaub. The difference in the date might have been a misprint, but because Emin’s collection is now scattered, one cannot be sure that this was Hartlaub’s third specimen.

Hartert (1920: 472) noted that the lectotype is ‘‘evidently a bird of the year’’. This refers to Hartlaub’s (1887: 318) statement that the wings in baucis are browner than those of clericalis and that specimens of clericalis collected on the same dates and at the same place have the wings pure black. All three of these birds retain the browner wings of the immature plumage, but the lectotype has no traces remaining of the black markings in the wing patches.

Hartert’s (1920: 472) citation of the year of publication of this name as 1884 is a misprint.