Geobasileus reguloides tarana 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 : 149

Geobasileus reguloides tarana Mathews

Geobasileus reguloides tarana Mathews, 1914c: 60 (Tarana, New South Wales).

Now Acanthiza reguloides reguloides Vigors and Horsfield, 1827 . See Mayr, 1986b: 432, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 207–208.

Syntype: AMNH 600707, collected at Tarana, 33.31S, 149.55E (Times Atlas), New South Wales, Australia, on 15 October 1911, by Robert Grant. From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews said: ‘‘While looking through the collection of skins in the possession of Mr. H.L. White, I noted the following new forms’’. He listed the type as from Tarana, but gave no information on how many specimens White had. This specimen bears Grant’s original field label marked ‘‘Type’’ in a hand unknown, but perhaps it is by Mathews. It was originally sexed as a male, but this has been marked out and a female symbol added in pencil. The locality and date have been miscopied onto the Rothschild label as ‘‘Tarong’’ and ‘‘5-10-11’’. It does not bear a printed H.L White Collection label or a Mathews Collection label, but the Rothschild Collection label is printed ‘‘Ex. coll. G.M. Mathews.’’ It also bears an AMNH type label, written by E. Mayr.

The MV houses the H.L. White Collection, and Wayne Longmore has kindly sent me digital photographs of the labels on the syntype in that collection. It is a male, collected by Grant at Tarana on 18 October 1911, and is also marked ‘‘Type’’ in the same hand as the AMNH label. The MV specimen also has an H.L. White printed label. Mathews would have seen the H.L. White Collection when he visited Australia in 1914 ( Mathews, 1942: 39). It is probable that he obtained the AMNH specimen from White then. I did not find it listed in Mathews’ catalog, but he entered few specimens in 1914 and later.