Pardalotus gracilis Hall, 2010

Pachycephalidae, Aegithalidae, Remizidae, Paridae, Sittidae, Neosittidae, Certhiidae, Rhabdornithidae, Climacteridae, Dicaeidae, Pardalotidae, Nectariniidae, And & Lecroy, Mary, 2010, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 8. Passeriformes:, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2010 (333), pp. 1-178 : 122-123

Pardalotus gracilis Hall

Pardalotus gracilis Hall, 1899a : ii (southern Victoria).

Now Pardalotus striatus ornatus Temminck, 1826 . See Schodde and Mason, 1999: 128–129, and Woinarski, 2008: 401.

SYNTYPES: AMNH 698925 , female, Springvale (5 Spring Vale, as on label), 37.57S, 145.09E, [Mornington County, ‘‘d’’], 25 December 1895 ; AMNH 698962 , male, Box Hill , 37.49S, 145.08E, [Evelyn County, ‘‘c’’], 4 November 1893 ; AMNH 698967 , male, Cranbourne , 38.06S, 145.17E, [Mornington County, ‘‘Descr Linn. Soc.’’], 15 July 1896 ; AMNH 698968 , female, Heytesbury , 38.34S, 142.56E, [Heytesbury County, ‘‘a’’], 15 September 1897 ; AMNH 698971 , male juvenile, Myrniong , 37.37S, 144.21E, [Bourke County, ‘‘e’’], 15 January 1897, all from Victoria, Australia, and collected by Robert Hall, coordinates from USBGN (1957). All are from the Rothschild Collection .

COMMENTS: Hall (1899a: ii), in the published abstracts of the 31 May 1899 meeting of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, communicated the ‘‘Description of a new Pardalote, its Nest and Eggs.’’ Because these published abstracts are difficult to obtain, I quote the entire abstract:

The name Pardalotus gracilis , or Crimson-

tipped Pardalote, is proposed for a bird hitherto

known only from the southern portion of

Victoria. Its nearest ally is P. ornatus , the

Scarlet-tipped Pardalote, which has the outer

edges of the 3 rd –7 th primaries (inclusive) pure

white, and the tips of the primary coverts

scarlet; whereas in P. gracilis the outer edge of

the 3 rd primary only is white (in young,

immature, and adult specimens alike), and the

tips of the primary coverts crimson. All the

nests of P. gracilis met with were found in the

banks of creeks; whereas all the nests of P.

ornatus seen by the author were in trees; and the

opinion is expressed that this difference in habit

will be found to be constant.

On p. iii of the same abstract is a note that ‘‘Mr. Hall sent for exhibition, to illustrate his paper, a photograph of the nest and eggs, and five skins (s, ♀, adult, and immature) of Pardalotus gracilis ; and skins of P. ornatus and P. affinis .’’ No type was designated for Pardalotus gracilis .

When the Proceedings of the 31 May 1899 meeting were published on 10 October 1899, Hall’s (1899b: 282) description was published as a title only, with a footnote: ‘‘Paper withdrawn, as a comparison of the specimens of the supposed new species with a series of specimens of P. assimilis Ramsay ( P. affinis, Temm. , subsp assimilis, Ramsay , according to Dr. Sharpe) in the Australian Museum, showed it to be a phase of this bird, not previously recorded from Victoria.–Ed.’’ On p. 285, the note from p. iii of the abstracts was reworded: ‘‘Mr. Hall sent for exhibition, to illustrate his paper, a photograph of the nest and eggs, and five skins (s, ♀, adult, and immature) of the Victorian Pardalote described therein; and skins of P. ornatus and P. affinis .’’

Then, Hall (1899c: 472) published (on 9 December 1899) a revised version of his original talk in which he referred to his specimens as a phase of the ‘‘subspecies (sic) Pardalotus assimilis, Ramsay ,’’ with a foot- note explaining the withdrawal of the earlier paper. In this revised paper, Hall (1899c: 473) listed his five specimens.

Despite the attempt to withdraw the description, P. gracilis was validly described in the published abstracts. Hindwood and Mayr (1946: 56) listed the collecting localities of the supposed syntypes of gracilis , saying that they were in AMNH; however, they listed specimens from several localities not among those of the syntypes listed above. The syntypes are only the five specimens listed by Hall.

When Hall (1899c: 473) listed his specimens, he gave them letters ‘‘a’’–‘‘e,’’ the sex of the specimen, the county in Victoria in which they were collected, and the date of collection. The letters assigned are on the reverse of Hall’s labels, and ‘‘ gracilis sp. nov. ’’ occurs on the label in all specimens except AMNH 698967. This last specimen is labeled assimilis , but the name has a line through it, and on the reverse of the label is written ‘‘Descr. Linn. Soc.’’ but without a letter. In the list of syntypes given above, the dates from Hall’s list match the dates on the AMNH specimens. Hall’s county names are given in brackets.

Hindwood and Mayr (1946: 56) concluded that gracilis was indistinguishable from their ‘‘ ornatus ’’; all five specimens come from within the range of ornatus as given by Schodde and Mason (1999: 128–129), and match the description given there.

I especially thank Alison Pirie for providing me with a copy of the abstracts in which gracilis was named, as this volume is not present in the AMNH library.