Gymnoris pyrgita massaica Neumann

Lecroy, Mary, 2014, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 12. Passeriformes: Ploceidae, Sturnidae, Buphagidae, Oriolidae, Dicruridae, Callaeidae, Grallinidae, Corcoracidae, Artamidae, Cracticidae, Ptilonorhynchidae, Cnemophilidae, Paradisaeidae, And Corvidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2014 (393), pp. 1-165 : 12

Gymnoris pyrgita massaica Neumann

Gymnoris pyrgita massaica Neumann, 1908b: 70 (Escarpment Station, Kikuyu).

Now Gymnoris pyrgita pyrgita (Heuglin, 1862) . See Hartert, 1919: 158; Moreau and Greenway, 1962: 23; Dickinson, 2003: 718; Fry and Keith, 2004: 44–45; and Summers-Smith, 2009: 809.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 617628 , adult male, collected at the Escarpment Station , 6500 ft, Kikuyu Mountains, Kenya, in January 1900, by William Doherty. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Neumann designated as the type of massaica a male collected at Escarpment Station by Doherty in January 1900 and gave the range of the form as ‘‘British and German East Africa,’’ including measurements of males and females. Doherty’s 11 specimens from the Escarpment Station were the only specimens collected prior to the publication of massaica that came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection. AMNH 617628 was the only male collected in January 1900 and is therefore the holotype. The 10 paratypes in AMNH are: AMNH 717627, 717629–717637, five males, five females, collected between November 1900 and March 190l.

For a moving obituary about Doherty and an account of this expedition to the Kikuyu Mountains, see Hartert (1901b: 494–506). Hartert (1902c: 620) reported that in 1900 the Escarpment Station, about halfway between Nairobi and Naivasha, was the terminus of the Uganda railway. Chapin (1954a: 661) gave the coordinates as 01.01S, 36.36E.