Zonaeginthus oculatus gaimardi Mathews

LeCroy, Mary, 2013, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 11. Passeriformes: Parulidae, Drepanididae, Vireonidae, Icteridae, Fringillinae, Carduelinae, Estrildidae, And Viduinae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2013 (381), pp. 1-155 : 100

[ Zonaeginthus oculatus gaimardi Mathews ]

In the original description, Mathews (1923: 40) said only that the Perth bird ‘‘Differs from Z. o. oculatus (Q. and G.) in its paler coloration [sic] and smaller size. Type, Perth, West Australia.’’ There are no Perth specimens from the Mathews Collection in AMNH. Mathews (1923: 33) indicated that although he had named many new subspecies in the completed manuscript for his ‘‘Birds of Australia’’ [volume 12] he was publishing many of these names earlier, apparently to prevent his being ‘‘scooped.’’ Later, Mathews (1925, 12 (4): 171) indicated that he was naming gaimardi in the ‘‘Birds of Australia,’’ apparently forgetting that he had already published it earlier. No further information is given on a possible type. This appears to be a case of Mathews deciding that the type locality of Z. oculatus (Quoy and Gaimard, 1830) was not Perth, as the authors had indicated, but was instead King George’s Sound, Western Australia. This left Perth birds without a name, which was supplied by Mathews! Now considered a synonym of Stagonopleura oculata (Quoy and Gaimard, 1830) ; see Mayr et al. (1968: 355) and Schodde and Mason (1999: 746).