Crucirostra major C.L. Brehm, 1853

LeCroy, Mary, 2013, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 11. Passeriformes: Parulidae, Drepanididae, Vireonidae, Icteridae, Fringillinae, Carduelinae, Estrildidae, And Viduinae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2013 (381), pp. 1-155 : 75-76

Crucirostra major C.L. Brehm

Crucirostra major Brehm, 1853: 181 (Dieser Kreuzschnabel erschien in unserer Gegend in dem an Nordlichtern und andern auffallenden Erscheinungen reichen Winter 1847/48).

Now Loxia pytyopsittacus Borkhausen, 1793 . See Hartert, 1918: 11; Vaurie, 1956b: 30–31; Vaurie, 1959: 647–648; Howell et al., 1968: 287–288; Dickinson, 2003: 755; and Clement, 2010: 603– 604.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 456971 , adult male, collected in the Roda Valley (Rodathal) on

27 (not 28) December 1847, by one of Brehm’s sons. From the C.L. Brehm Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Brehm, in the original description, noted that his son had shot a male and two females on the 28 December 1847 and that he had obtained a first-year male on 12 February 1848 that had been shot a few days before. Hartert (1918: 11) listed the male collected on 27 December 1847 as the type of major , thereby designating it the lectotype, and noted that it was tied together with its female. This female, AMNH 456972, would thereby become a paralectotype of major . The other two specimens mentioned by Brehm are also paralectotypes: a second female collected on the 28 December 1848 was cataloged as AMNH 456983 and was exchanged to ZFMK and the first-year male obtained on 12 February 1848 is AMNH 456982.

In the description, Brehm noted that the three specimens collected on the same day were collected on the 28 December 1847, but the label on the two specimens still in AMNH, not in Brehm’s hand, is marked 27 December 1847 and is labeled Crucirostra pityopsittacus Brm. The 28 December is perhaps the date on which he received it. Hartert (1918: 11) thought the handwriting was perhaps that of Brehm’s son, Oskar; he also noted that Brehm’s name, major , is a junior secondary homonym of Loxia major Billberg, 1828 .