Melidectes Emilii A. B. Meyer

Mary, 2011, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae And Meliphagidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (348), pp. 1-193 : 135-136

Melidectes Emilii A. B. Meyer

Melidectes Emilii A.B. Meyer (in Finsch and Meyer), 1886: 22 (Hufeisengebirge, 7000– 8000 ft, Owen Stanley-Gebirge, Südost-Neu Guinea).

Now Melidectes torquatus emilii A.B. Meyer, 1886 . See Salomonsen, 1967: 420, and Dickinson, 2003: 438.

Syntype: AMNH 693873, unsexed, ‘‘N. Guinea,’’ no date, collected by Andrew Goldie (no. 130). From the Rothschild Collection.

? SYNTYPE: AMNH 693874, unsexed, locality uncertain, S. New Guinea, no date, no collector on label. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: It was Sharpe (1882: 438) who first examined specimens collected by Andrew Goldie at the ‘‘back of the Astrolabe Mountains’’ in southeastern New Guinea. These specimens were reported on by Sharpe and then sent to Edward Gerrard, a dealer, for sale ( Sharpe, 1882: 423). He ( Sharpe, 1882: 438) listed one specimen of Melidectes torquatus —no. 130, collected by Goldie in the Morocco (5 Moroke or Moroka) district— and commented: ‘‘Agrees with the figure given by Gould (B.N. Guin. part iv).’’ Some Karl Hunstein specimens were mentioned in Sharpe’s 1882 report, but these were collected on Normanby Island and in the Milne Bay area, and there is no mention of a Hunstein specimen of torquatus .

Karl Hunstein, in 1884, collected at Moroke and on the Hufeisengebirge (5 Horseshoe Mountain), and his collection was reported on by Finsch and Meyer (1885, 1886). Melidectes Emilii was described by Meyer (in Finsch and Meyer, 1886: 22), with the comment (citing Sharpe’s 1882 paper), that Sharpe must not have actually compared his specimens with Gould’s illustration. Meyer did not give the exact collecting locality or number of Hunstein’s specimens (more than one, based on measurements given), but in the introduction to their paper, Finsch and Meyer (1885: 369– 372, and on the map on p. 370) gave Moroke as one of Hunstein’s collecting localities. It is probable that his specimens of this species came from there, as it is a mid-mountain species, and unlikely to be found high on the 7–8000 ft Horseshoe Mountain. Specimens from Hunstein’s collection were deposited in SMTD.

AMNH 693874 was included in the AMNH type collection. It bears three labels: A label marked ‘‘ Melidectes Emiliae [sic] Meyer, Typus, S. New Guinea,’’ with ‘‘Co-’’ added before ‘‘Typus’’ in different ink. On the reverse of this label in a different hand is written ‘‘Seems to me identical with M. torquatus Salv. ’’ However, M. torquatus was described by Sclater, not Salvadori. The second label is a Rothschild Collection label with the locality given as ‘‘S.N. Guinea’’ and the reverse marked ‘‘co-type, Melidectes torquatus emilii Meyer.’’ Someone has added ‘‘ ♀ ’’ in pencil. The third label is an AMNH type label, stamped ‘‘Rothschild Collection.’’ AMNH 693874 is the specimen Rothschild and Hartert (1903b: 439) listed as a Hunstein specimen of M. torquatus emilii , ‘‘marked ‘Typus’ in the author’s own hand.’’ Evidently, Hartert added the cotype designation to the label but did not list it as a type in his lists of types in the Rothschild Collection and gave no information on how it came to be in the Rothschild Collection. It seems highly unlikely that the author would misspell the name he introduced, and the words pencilled on the back of the label echo Sharpe’s remark concerning Goldie’s specimen. There is actually nothing on the label to tie this specimen to Hunstein. Two syntypes collected by Hunstein were in SMTD and are listed by Eck and Quaisser (2004: 271) as having been lost in WWII. Each of these is listed as having been sexed and having a collector’s field number. A comparison of the handwriting on labels of two Hunstein specimens of other species in AMNH with that on the label of AMNH 693874 shows that the latter could not have been written by Hunstein.

On the other hand, AMNH 693873 is the specimen reported on by Sharpe (1882: 438). It still bears the small paper tag with the number ‘‘130’’ and on another label is said to be from ‘‘N. Guinea’’ with ‘‘Goldie’’ as the collector. Presumably this specimen was bought from Gerrard by Rothschild. Meyer (in Finsch and Meyer, 1886: 22), by bibliographic reference (ICZN, 1999: 76, Art. 74.2), included Sharpe’s Moroke specimens in his emilii, and as a result, AMNH 693873 is a syntype; an AMNH type label has been added. It is also possible, particularly given the annotation on its label, that AMNH 693874 was a second Goldie specimen seen by Sharpe but not listed by him individually and later acquired by Rothschild at the same time as he purchased AMNH 693873.

The article by Sharpe in the Journal of the Linnean Society is often cited as published in 1883; however, on the reverse of the title page for volume 16 (which is dated 1883), there is a list of the publication dates for the separate numbers of the volume. No. 94, which includes pp. 422–447, was published on 31 July 1882.