Calamanthus montanellus ashbyi 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 : 144

Calamanthus montanellus ashbyi Mathews

Calamanthus montanellus ashbyi Mathews, 1922a: 287 (Wongan Hills) .

Now Calamanthus montanellus Milligan, 1903 . See Mayr, 1986b: 429, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 152–153.

SYNTYPES: AMNH 587889 (Mathews no. 2081, WAM no. 6292, CPC/AWM no. 471, stamped with Edwin Ashby’s stamp), adult male, 4 October 1903 ; AMNH 587890 (Mathews no. 5240, WAM no. 6458a, coll. CPC) male, October 1903 ; AMNH 587891 (Mathews no.?, WAM no. 6293, CPC/AWM no. 472), juvenile female, 4 October 1903 ; and AMNH 587892 (Mathews no. 5239, WAM no. 6290, coll. no. 470), ‘‘nestling’ ’,

10 October 1903. All of these specimens were obtained in the Wongan Hills, 30.51S, 116.39E ( Johnstone and Storr, 2004: 515), Western Australia, Australia, by C.P. Conigrave and A.W. Milligan. From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews did not designate a type in the original description. In fact, he only said ‘‘I have another bird collected in the Wongan Hills which is smaller and buffer than the one from Jetermerrup’’. The latter specimen, now AMNH 587888, was collected by Milligan at Yetermirrup, near the Stirling Ranges, Western Australia, on 9 September 1902, and is a paralectotype of Calamanthus montanellus Milligan , the lectotype of which is in WAM, designated by Whittell and Serventy (1948: 7; see also Anonymous, 1960: 29). It was obtained by Mathews (no. 5238) from WAM (no. 5302) and cataloged under the name C. fuliginosus at the same time as two of the above syntypes, which were cataloged under the name C. montanellus !

All of the Wongan Hills specimens were in Mathews’ hand before C. montanellus ashbyi was named, so all four must be considered syntypes. AMNH 587889, stamped with Edwin Ashby’s stamp, had been obtained by Ashby from WAM, and he noted on the label ‘‘compared with type [presumably of montanellus ], but is not so green on the back.’’

A.W. Milligan and C.P. Conigrave made a trip to Wongan Hills in 1903 for the WAM. ‘‘Mr. Conigrave was fortunate enough to obtain, on the second day’s exploration at the Hills, an ornithological ‘godchild’ of mine in the form of Calamanthus montanellus …. We secured altogether some half a dozen specimens, included in which were two young ones in very much advanced plumage’’ ( Milligan, 1904: 224).