Cisticola exilis normani Mathews

LeCroy, M., 2008, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History. Part 7. Passeriformes: Sylviidae, Muscicapidae, Platysteiridae, Maluridae, Acanthizidae, Monarchidae, Rhipiduridae, And Petroicidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 313 (1), pp. 1-287 : 42

Cisticola exilis normani Mathews

Cisticola exilis normani Mathews, 1914b: 98 (Norman River, Queensland).

Now Cisticola juncidis normani Mathews, 1914 . See Lynes, 1930: 101–102, 652, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 709–710.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 592728 , unsexed, collected at Normanton , 17.40S, 141.05E (Times Atlas), Queensland, Australia, on 16 May 1914, by Robin Kemp (no. 4547). From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews listed the type of normani as from Norman River, but gave no further information. Lynes (1930: 652) listed as the type a specimen collected at Normanton on 16 May 1914 by Kemp and judged the specimen to be an immature male. AMNH 592728 is the only Kemp specimen of this form in AMNH that was collected on 16 May 1914, and thus Lynes’ listing serves to designate it the lectotype of C. e. normani. It bears a Rothschild type label and a note in Mathews’ hand on the back of Kemp’s field label ‘‘Type C. e. normani ’’.

Mathews (1914b: 98) gave the range of normani as ‘‘ Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland to McArthur River in the Northern Territory’’. All 17 specimens of this form, including the lectotype, listed as having been examined by Lynes (1930: 102) in the Rothschild Collection, came to AMNH. Fifteen specimens from Normanton are paralectotypes of normani: AMNH 592729–592743. AMNH 592729 and 592733 were exchanged to BMNH in March 1970. AMNH 592727, a specimen from Fitzroy Vale dated 24 February 1882, listed by Lynes as collected by Kemp, was, as pointed out by Schodde and Mason (1979: 49), collected in eastern coastal Queensland by Lumholtz. It is a paratype of Cisticola juncidis laveryi Schodde and Mason, 1979 . Because C. exilis and C. juncidis had not been recognized as separate species when Mathews named normani, his specimens from Normanton and Glenore on the Norman River, included in C. exilis alexandrae by Lynes (1930: 197), are also paralectotypes of normani: AMNH 593116–593122. I did not find any Mathews specimens from the McArthur River. Northern Territory specimens of Cisticola exilis or C. juncidis in AMNH were either not Mathews specimens or were from farther west than the McArthur River.