Smicrornis brevirostris mallee 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 : 167

Smicrornis brevirostris mallee Mathews

Smicrornis brevirostris mallee Mathews, 1920a: 132 (Mallee, Victoria).

Now Smicrornis brevirostris brevirostris (Gould, 1838) . See below.

Syntype: AMNH 606233, adult female, collected at Ouyen, 35.06S, 142.22E (Times Atlas), Victoria, Australia, on 13 September 1913 by Tom Tregellas. From the Mathews Collection (no. 18339) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews (1920a: 132) gave a name to birds of this species from the Victorian Mallee, saying that they were ‘‘much paler above and especially underneath than South Australian S. b. viridescens, and are much duller than typical New South Wales birds’’. The above is the only Mathews specimen at AMNH from the Victorian Mallee. Mayr (1986b: 443) recognized S. b. mallee, but Schodde and Mason (1999: 176– 178) indicated that the Victorian Mallee is in a zone of intergradation between S. b. brevirostris and S. b. occidentalis. This specimen is quite pale and appears closer to Victorian specimens of brevirostris than to specimens of occidentalis.

The number ‘‘449’’ on Tregellas’ label refers to the number of this species in Mathews (1908a). This specimen had not previously been in the AMNH type collection.