Munia pectoralis incerta 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 : 126

Munia pectoralis incerta Mathews

Munia pectoralis incerta Mathews, 1912a: 430 (Alexandra [sic], Northern Territory).

Now Heteromunia pectoralis (Gould, 1841) . See Mayr et al., 1968: 387; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 774; Dickinson, 2003: 736; and Payne, 2010: 351.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 721521 , adult male, collected at Alexandria , 19.02S, 136.42E ( USBGN, 1957), Northern Territory, Australia, on 2 January 1906, by Wilfred Stalker (no. 104). From the Mathews Collection (no. 3517) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype. The holotype bears, in addition to Stalker’s label, Mathews and Rothschild type labels and a ‘‘Figured’’ label, showing that it served as the model for Mathews (1925, pl. 568, lower fig., opp. p. 213, text p. 214) where it is confirmed as the type of incerta.

As shown by his catalog, Mathews received three specimens from Alexandria. Two paratypes are: AMNH 721520 (Mathews no. 3514), male, February 1906, and AMNH 721522 (3513), female, 2 January 1906). Stalker’s collection at Alexandria was made for Sir William Ingram, reported on by his son, Collingwood Ingram (1907, 1909), and later purchased by Mathews. Mathews’ three specimens were listed by Ingram (1907: 415; 1909: 618) as the only specimens of this species collected by Stalker. Mathews gave the range of incerta as ‘‘ Northern Territory.’’ Three additional specimens from the Mathews Collection were collected early enough to be available to Mathews for the description. AMNH 721518 was collected at Port Essington, ‘‘North Queensland’’ in July 1883 and cataloged (no. 7313) with the Thorpe Collection in February 1911. Mathews probably quickly realized that Port Essington was in Northern Territory and changed his label. I consider it a paratype of incerta. AMNH 721519 was collected on the Mary River in May 1895 by Knut Dahl, but was not received from ZMO until after the publication of the name ( Mathews, 1912b: 25); The third specimen, AMNH 721523, was the only one collected at Eureka on 7 January 1903 by J.T. Tunney (no. 1022) (Hartert, 1905: 238), but it was never in the Mathews Collection even though it bears a ‘‘Figured’’ label and was illustrated in Mathews (1925: pl. 568, upper fig., opp. p. 213, pp. 213–214 of text), apparently borrowed by Mathews for the purpose. These last two specimens are not paratypes of incerta.

Mathews (1913b: 60) introduced the generic name Heteromunia , with Amadina pectoralis Gould as its type species.