Lichmera indistincta yorki Mathews

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 : 52

[ Lichmera indistincta yorki Mathews ]

Mathews (1923b: 37) named Lichmera indistincta yorki , type from York, Western Australia, and noted that it differed from Lichmera i. indistincta ‘‘in being more rufous above.’’

There is no specimen from York, Western Australia, in AMNH. It appears that Mathews based this name on a bird collected by Ashby. Mathews (1924: 427), after giving the seven subspecies he included in his 1913 list ( Mathews, 1913a), added: ‘‘… but it will be noted that more are indicated by Ashby’s note that the York bird differed from the Perth one, and the type locality is King George’s Sound in West Australia. As Perth birds are commonly different from Albany ones, three forms are suggested in this south- west corner. Those I have named. Also the Sterling [sic] Ranges bird I regarded as differing slightly from the Swan River one.’’ I interpret this as meaning that the ‘‘three forms’’ in the ‘‘south-west corner’’ are Lichmera i. indistincta (Vigors and Horsfield) , the type locality of which is King George Sound (5 Albany); L. i. perthi (see below), type locality Perth (5 Swan River), and L. i. yorki , type locality York (based on Ashby’s note). Mathews also named L. i. milligani (see below), type locality Stirling Range.

In his article on the birds he collected in Western Australia, Ashby (1901: 134), under the name Glyciphila ocularis Gould (but which Mathews considered to be L.i. indistincta ) said: ‘‘Guilford, near Perth. One male. This skin is considerably more grey in plumage than is a skin I have from York, W.A., collected by myself in 1889. The York skin is decidedly more rufus in coloration, the underside of the head markedly so. The York skin is not sexed. …’’ The whereabouts of this skin is unknown. It is not in SAMA (P. Horton, personal commun.) or ANSP (N. Rice, personal commun.) and may have have been destroyed in the fire that burned Ashby’s home ( Whittell, 1954: 19).