Acanthiza inornata strellyi 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 : 147-148

Acanthiza inornata strellyi Mathews

Acanthiza inornata strellyi Mathews, 1913e: 76 (Strelly River, Mid-west Australia).

Now Acanthiza inornata Gould, 1841 . See Mayr, 1986b: 431, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 209.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 600748 , unsexed, collected on the Strelley (5 Strelly) River, 20.27S, 119.00E ( Johnstone and Storr, 2004: 513), Western Australia, Australia, in September 1907, by J.B. Cleland. From the Mathews Collection (no. 2177) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews had the single specimen. It bears a Mathews Collection label with his catalog number and ‘‘Type’’ written in his hand. The number ‘‘560’’ that appears on this label refers to the number of Acanthiza inornata in Mathews (1908a). Rothschild collection and type labels are also present, as well as a yellow ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that the specimen was illustrated in Mathews (1922a: pl. 449, opp. p. 435, text p. 441), where it is confirmed as the type of strellyi.

Cleland and Giles (1909) visited the ‘‘Camel Camp’’ on the Strelley River, 60 mi inland from Port Hedland, arriving at the end of July 1907. Cleland, who collected birds, returned to Perth after a 2-month stay ( Cleland and Giles, 1909: 54), apparently around the end of September 1907. However, the Strelley River locality is outside the range of Acanthiza inornata ( Schodde and Mason, 1999: 209) . It is possible that Cleland collected the specimen of inornata after his return to Perth, but Mayr and Serventy (1938: 251) called attention to its fresh plumage and noted that it is ‘‘certainly not a September specimen’’. It seems likely that Cleland had collected the specimen near his home in Perth on an unknown date and included it with the Strelley River specimens that he sent to Mathews.

The poorly made specimen has flank feathers pulled to the back of the skin and appears to have ‘‘upper tail-coverts creamwhite’’ ( Mathews, 1922a: 44), a character not listed in the original description.