Dicrurus bracteatus baileyi Mathews

Dicrurus bracteatus baileyi Mathews, 1912a: 437 (Alligator River, Northern Territory).

Now Dicrurus bracteatus baileyi Mathews, 1912 . See Mathews, 1926: 283–288; Vaurie, 1949b: 288–290; 1962: 149; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 490–492; Dickinson, 2003: 493; and Rocamora and Yeatman-Berthelot, 2009: 216–217.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 672440, adult male, collected on the South Alligator River (as on label), 12.10S, 132.23E (Storr, 1977: 113), Northern Territory, Australia, on 11 November 1902, by J.T. Tunney (no. 757). From the Mathews Collection (no. 9370) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews gave his catalog number of the holotype and the range of baileyi as Northern Territory. The holotype bears in addition to Tunney’s label, a Rothschild label, Mathews and Rothschild type labels, and a ‘‘ Figured’ ’ label indicating that it was the model for Mathews (1926: pl. 580, opp. p. 283; text p. 284) where it is confirmed as the type of baileyi. There is only one paratype of baileyi in AMNH: AMNH 672439 (Mathews no. 9371), female, South Alligator River, collected 8 October 1902, by J.T. Tunney (no. 758) .

Mathews noted in his catalog that he had obtained these two specimens from Rothschild; the other specimens (two males and one female) collected by Tunney and listed by Vaurie (1949b: 289) as paratypes of baileyi were never in the Mathews Collection, and I do not consider them paratypes. Hartert (1905) had reported on the entire Tunney collection that had been made with support by Rothschild and under the auspices of the WAM. In that report he listed Tunney’s numbers of all the specimens. Half of the collection had been returned to WAM and the rest retained in the Rothschild Collection. It is from these latter that Mathews obtained his specimens of baileyi. Two specimens collected by Dahl at Port Darwin and the Daly River in 1894 were cataloged by Mathews as nos. 10982 and 10983 in February 1912, after the publication of baileyi on 31 January 1912. Mathews (1912b: 25) mentioned having received that collection after his Reference List (Mathews, 1912a) was published.

See Schodde and Mason (1999: 490–492) for a detailed taxonomic circumscription of D. bracteatus in Australia.