Diaphorillas modestus obscurior Mathews

LeCroy, M., 2008, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History. Part 7. Passeriformes: Sylviidae, Muscicapidae, Platysteiridae, Maluridae, Acanthizidae, Monarchidae, Rhipiduridae, And Petroicidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 313 (1), pp. 1-287 : 117-118

Diaphorillas modestus obscurior Mathews

Diaphorillas modestus obscurior Mathews, 1923a: 183 , 185 (Wyuna, Broken Hill, New South Wales).

Now Amytornis textilis modestus (North, 1902) . See Parker, 1972: 158–162, Schodde, 1982: 185, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 117.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 598071 , adult male, collected at Wyarra Tank (5 Wyuna), Tanbarra ranges, on 1 October 1912. From the Mathews Collection (no. 18429) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews, in the original description ( Mathews, 1923a:183), described the adult male of Diaphorillas modestus and noted that it was the upper left figure in plate 468 ( Mathews, 1923a: opp. p. 183), ‘‘collect- ed at Wyuna [sic], Broken Hill, New South Wales, on the 1st of October 1912, and is the type of Diaphorillas modestus obscurior ’’. Mathews (1923a: 183) also gave measurements (total length 150 mm, culmen 10, wing 63, tail 78, tarsus 25), and these same measurements are written on the field label of AMNH 598071. Mathews (1923a: 185) said ‘‘ Type from Wyurra, Broken Hill, New South Wales, October 1st, 1912, and is figured and described.’’ This specimen bears Mathews’ yellow ‘‘Figured’’ label. My measurements of this specimen agree with those published.

A second specimen, AMNH 598070 (Mathews catalog no. 18430), immature male, collected at ‘‘ Wyurra’ ’, on 1 October 1912 has ‘‘ Type of obscurior G.M. M[athews]’’ written in his hand on the reverse of the field label, and it bears a Rothschild type label. However, reference to the original description shows that this is incorrect, as the description applies solely to an adult male. My measurements of this specimen are: total length 152, culmen 11.5, wing 60, tail 75, tarsus 24. It is a paratype. Neither of these specimens bears a Mathews type label and both are retained in the AMNH type collection because the paratype bears a Rothschild type label, but a label noting that it is a paratype has been added ; an AMNH type label has been added to the holotype .

Parker (1972: 162) noted the three different spellings of the type locality, ‘‘Wyuna, Broken Hill’’, ‘‘Wyurra, Broken Hill’’, and ‘‘Wyarra, Tanbarra Ranges’’, and received information that ‘‘Wyarra is the name of a tank on Pimpara Lake Station. This area was formerly part of Mount Arrowsmith Station, hence the citing of Mount Arrowsmith as type locality of obscurior in the 1926 RAOU Checklist.’’ Parker (1972: 166) gave the coordinates of Wyarra Tank as 30.22S, 141.44E. See also McAllan (2000: 245).

Mathews cataloged these specimens in March 1914 as having been received from W.D.K. Macgillivray of Broken Hill.