Calamocichla cunenensis Hartert

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 : 34

Calamocichla cunenensis Hartert

Calamocichla cunenensis Hartert, 1903c: 62 (Cunene River).

Now Acrocephalus gracilirostris cunenensis (Hartert, 1903) . See Watson et al., 1986a: 76, Urban et al., 1997: 121, and Dean, 2000: 223.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 598555 , adult unsexed, labeled as collected on the Cunene River , Angola (but see below), on 3 April 1880, by Axel W. Eriksson. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Hartert’s description was based on Eriksson’s single specimen. The number ‘‘741’’, cited by Hartert in the original description, appears on Eriksson’s label, but in quite different ink and hand. Rothschild’s partial list of acquisitions, in the Department of Ornithology Archives , is annotated on 15 April 1902: ‘‘recd from Marsden S. African skins (Ericsson coll). 720 skins’’. The number ‘‘741’’ may be a number given this specimen by Marsden ; the Rothschild Collection had no catalog. In his list of Rothschild Collection types, Hartert (1920: 464) noted that the specimen probably came from south of the Cunene River ; however, Chapin’s notes indicate that it may have been from east or north of the Cunene River. W.R.J. Dean’s (personal commun.) studies indicate that if the Cunene River is the correct locality, then this specimen was probably collected by Eriksson’s assistant ; if the date is correct, then it was collected at Omaruru. On the original label, the date is written ‘‘ 3/4 1880 ’’ and was interpreted as 3 April by Hartert in the original description. While it is possible to interpret this as March / April 1880, a spot-check of other specimens collected by Eriksson indicated that he routinely wrote the date in this manner with the day first, followed by the month, including AMNH 595052 Hippolias i. icterina collected at Omaruru on ‘‘ 19/3 1880 ’’. I am inclined to accept the date as correct and the collecting locality as Omaruru, 21.26S, 15.56E ( Dean et al., 2006: 171), Namibia .