Passer montanus obscuratus Jacobi, 1923

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 : 11

Passer montanus obscuratus Jacobi

Passer montanus obscuratus Jacobi, 1923: 32 (Mittlerer Jangtsze von oberhalb Hankóu bis Hsinlungtan; Mintal zwischen Jatschóu und Sungpan, Mittelchina).

Now Passer montanus saturatus Stejneger, 1885 . See Vaurie, 1956: 8–17; 1959: 578–579; Dickinson, 2003: 717; and Summers-Smith, 2009: 804–805.

SYNTYPE: AMNH 718215, adult female, collected at Hsien-lung-tan, Yangtse rapids

(= Schnelle, as on label), Sichuan, China, on 27 February 1919, by Hugo Weigold on the Walter Stötznerschen Expeditionen. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Jacobi did not designate a type in the original description, but said that he had six males, four females, and four juveniles; he gave the range as ‘‘Mittelchina, Prov. Hupeh und Szetschwan.’’ Of these, the above specimen came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection. The original label was marked ‘‘Cotypus.’’ Hartert did not list this syntype in any of his lists of types in the Rothschild Collection. Vaurie (1959: 378) first recognized it as a syntype, and it was probably he who had the AMNH type label added. In addition, there were five syntypes in SNSD, of which three were lost in WWII, and one in BMNH ( Eck and Quaisser, 2004: 307).

Vaurie (1959: 578–579) synonymized obscuratus with iubilaeus, and Dickinson (2003: 717) considered iubilaeus a synonym of saturatus, citing Cheng (1987: 938). There seems to be an error in Summers-Smith (2009: 804) as he recognized obscuratus but gave the range as ‘‘ Nepal E to NE India,’’ which does not include the type localities of obscuratus.

Wiegold (1922: VI) noted that Hsien-lungtan was on the Yangtse below Wan-hsien, 30.54N, 100.14E (Times Atlas).