Myiagra rubecula yorki Mathews, 1912

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 : 207

Myiagra rubecula yorki Mathews

Myiagra rubecula yorki Mathews, 1912a: 321 (Cape York).

Now Myiagra rubecula yorki Mathews, 1912 . See Schodde and Mason, 1999: 509–511.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 653017 , adult male, collected on Cape York [Chester River, see below], Queensland, Australia, on 9 July 1898, by Albert S. Meek (no. 1900). From the Mathews Collection (no. 1826) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype in the original description. In addition to Meek’s field label, the specimen bears Mathews and Rothschild type labels and a yellow ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it was illustrated in Mathews (1921b: pl. 405, upper fig., opp. p. 43, text p. 44). In the text, the figured male with the above data is described and confirmed as the type of yorki; both the specimen and its illustration have black lores.

Paratypes, all collected by Meek on Cape York in 1898, are: AMNH 653014 (Meek no. 2030), adult male with black lores, 27 July ; AMNH 653020 (1835), adult female with face showing a dusky wash, 21 June ; and AMNH 653023 (2011), adult female (see below), 23 July .

Schodde and Mason (1999: 511) discussed yorki and considered it probably a migrant from a population that breeds farther south, naming the resident race okyri . Paratypes AMNH 653014 and 653020 agree with their diagnosis of yorki, but AMNH 653023 differs in having no dusky wash on the face and a small bill. It, in fact, may be a specimen of okyri. All were collected in a month when southern migrants augment local populations on Cape York Peninsula. Other specimens in AMNH from the Rothschild Collection, but never in Mathews’ Collection, were collected by Meek on the same expedition. All appear to be specimens of yorki.

Parker (1966) traced Meek’s collecting localities on Cape York Peninsula and found that in June–August 1898 his collectors were based at the Chester River (13.42S, 143.33E) ; thus, that is the type locality of names based on Meek’s Cape York Peninsula specimens .