Aidemosyne modesta nogoa 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 : 114

Aidemosyne modesta nogoa Mathews

Aidemosyne modesta nogoa Mathews, 1915: 132 (Queensland) .

Now Neochmia modesta (Gould, 1837) . See Mayr et al., 1968: 368, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 754, Dickinson, 2003: 732, and Payne, 2010: 354– 355.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 721976 , adult male, collected on the Nogoa River, 23.33S, 148.32E ( USBGN, 1957), Queensland, Australia, on 4 August 1881, received from Robert Collett. From the Mathews Collection (no. 14606) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews said that the type of nogoa from Queensland ‘‘Differs from A. m. modesta in its lighter coloration.’’ The above specimen is the only Queensland specimen in AMNH that had been in the Mathews Collection. It bears a Mathews Collection label marked ‘‘ Type nogoa ’’ in his hand and his catalog number 14606, although this was not cited in the original description. It also bears an original label with ‘‘s, Nogoa River, 4/8/81, Central Q.’’ and a Rothschild Museum label printed ‘‘Ex. coll. G.M. Mathews.’’ Mathews had received the specimen from Prof. Robert Collett, ZMO, along with many other specimens collected in Australia by Knut Dahl and Carl Lumholtz. This specimen was collected by Lumholtz and had not previously been recognized as a type.

According to Whittell (1954: 457), Lumholtz collected around Gracemere, 23.27S, 150.27E ( Storr, 1984: 183) from November 1880 to August 1881 and then began an 800 mile trip into western Queensland. Lumholtz (1889) wrote about his stay in Australia, and specifically mentioned the Nogoa River on page 34.

The adult male illustrated in Mathews (1925: 216 and pl. 569, opp. p. 216) is AMNH 721975 from the Darling Downs, Queensland. Although the specimen bears a Mathews ‘‘Figured’’ label, it had been in the Rothschild Collection, not the Mathews collection and was apparently borrowed by Mathews for the illustration. I do not consider it a part of Mathews’ type series.