Myzantha melanocephala whitei Mathews

Mary, 2011, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae And Meliphagidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (348), pp. 1-193 : 158

Myzantha melanocephala whitei Mathews

Myzantha melanocephala whitei Mathews, 1912a: 417 (South Australia).

Now considered intergradient between Manorina m. melanocephala and M. m. lepidota. See Salomonsen, 1967: 440, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 266–268, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185– 191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 616–617.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 694359 , female, collected in South Australia, in July 1890. From the Mathews Collection (no. 3360) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews gave his catalog number of the holotype in the original description and the range of whitei as ‘‘ Victoria, South Australia.’’ The original label is missing from the holotype ; it bears a Mathews Collection label and Mathews and Rothschild type labels. The following specimens, all from Victoria, are paratypes: AMNH 694363 (Mathews no. 1125), female, Sassafras , 3 September 1910 (cataloged as 1911) ; AMNH 694370 (9678), female, Bendigo , 3 March 1909 ; AMNH 694371 (4745), female, Bewick, 14 July 1909. There are four Victorian specimens collected by C.F. Cole that are possible paratypes: Lang Lang , AMNH 694375 , male, 9 March 1908 ; AMNH 694376 , male [?female], 16 May 1905 ; AMNH 694377 , female, 9 March 1908 ; Somerville , AMNH 694378 , male, 14 May 1907. I did not find these specimens in Mathews catalog and do not know when he received them ; a large portion of Cole’s collection was sent to Mathews in 1914 ( Whittell, 1954: 158), long after the publication of whitei on 31 January 1912 and after Mathews no longer cataloged specimens, although he had received some from time to time earlier. AMNH 694381 , a Mathews specimen from ‘‘ Goulbourne’ ’ dated December 1896, was also collected early enough, but apparently not cataloged .