Crypsirhina pallida Blyth, 1846: 30

TL: Western Himalaya; = error; here restricted to Chennai, Coromandel Coast, SE India [13°06’N, 80°16’E]; (see below).

Now Dendrocitta vagabunda pallida (Blyth, 1846) ( Dendrocitta rufa vernayi Kinnear & Whistler, 1930, is a junior synonym; see below). Jerdon 1863: 315 listed the taxon as valid species. Sharpe 1877: 77 synonymized the name with Lanius rufus Scopoli, 1786 (preoccupied by Lanius rufus Linnaeus, 1766) = D. vagabunda vagabunda (Latham, 1790) .

HOLOTYPE: ZMB 2002.601 [new registration]. [No sex or age given, first year bird]. Loc.: [not given; acquired in Calcutta; ̔Western Himalaya’ in Blyth 1846, in error for SE India]. Date: [acquisition in December 1845]. Coll. Behn / Galathea . [S, Mus & Galathea labels, Meise MS].

COMMENTS: Edward Blyth (1810–1875), after making his name for editing Griffith’s English production of Cuvier’s Animal Kingdom (Griffith 1824 –1835), was recruited in 1841 as Curator of the Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal at Calcutta (Walters 2003: 156). There he met Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Behn (1808–1878), who during the circumnavigation of the Danish corvette Galathea, was visiting Calcutta in December 1845. At the market of this town Behn bought some bird specimens that he showed to Blyth. One of these Blyth (1846: 30) described as a new species, Crypsirhina pallida, stating that:

“This species, and the young of Psilorhinus albicapillus, were obtained in a small collection from that part [Western Himalaya], purchased in Calcutta by Prof. Behn, of Kiel University, who first called my attention to the distinctness of each of them from its near congener, and kindly permitted me to draw up descriptions for publication.”

Behn wrote on the Galathea label that the specimen had been “bought in Calcutta for the Kiel Museum” [für das Kieler Museum in Calcutta gekauft] and that the species “ Crypsirhina pallida Bl. was named from this specimen.” [ Crypsirhina pallida Bl. nach diesem Exemplar gemacht – my translations]. The actual field collector and collecting locality of the type specimen remains unknown. Blyth 5 referred to the taxon again in his Catalogue (Blyth 1852: 336), where no further details were given. Subsequent evaluations of the taxon were based solely on Blyth’s description with no consultation and discussion of the possible whereabouts of the holotype (e.g. Horsfield & Moore 1858: 568, Jerdon 1863: 314–316, Ticehurst 1922, Paynter 1961). Since the publication of Ticehurst (1922: 537), most subsequent authors considered the name Crypsirhina pallida Blyth, 1846, to refer to populations of Dendrocitta vagabunda either from the Western Himalayas or Western and western Central India, or to birds from both regions (Jerdon 1863: 315–316, Ticehurst 1926b: 692, Whistler 1928: 12, Blake & Vaurie 1962: 246, Ali & Ripley 1972: 217, Ripley 1982: 288, Howard & Moore 1991: 539, Madge & Burn 1999: 113, Clements 2000: 603, Dickinson 2003: 510, Dickinson et al. 2004a: 91, Dickinson et al. 2004b: 118, 131, Rasmussen & Anderton 2005: 595). Paynter (1961: 380) was an exception in casting doubt on the origin of Blyth’s specimen, considering that the original description more closely applied to birds then known under the name parvulus or vernayi. The type locality was erroneously restricted to Simla by Ticehurst (1922: 537) [= Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India; 31°03’N, 77°13’E] and was reluctantly revised by Paynter (1961: 381) to Galkund, Surat Dangs [ Galkund Village, The Dangs District, SE Gujarat, West India].

The discovery of the holotype of C. pallida in the ZMB collection provides the opportunity to ascertain its true identity and reveals that Blyth’s original description and measurements were correct even though they had been doubted by some (e.g. Ticehurst 1922), but not the cited type locality.

Comparisons were made with specimens in ZMB, BMNH, and AMNH, including photographs of the holotype of Dendrocitta vagabunda vernayi . The comparisons also included specimens of the nominate subspecies D. v. vagabunda from Calcutta. Calcutta is the restricted type locality of D. v. vagabunda (Ticehurst 1922: 537) and the locality where the type of pallida was originally purchased. The studies also included specimens referred to D. v. vernayi and specimens from western and western Central India that had formerly been referred to pallida (Kinnear & Whistler 1930, Paynter 1961, Ripley 1982, Dickinson 2003). The holotype of C. pallida Blyth is in overall coloration and measurements (wing 140 mm, tail 216 mm [222 mm in original description], tarsus 29.4 mm, bill 28.9 mm) similar to specimens previously referred to D. v. vernayi (see Paynter 1961: 382 and Table 1). The type is an immature bird as shown by the brownish tinge of the head and upper breast as opposed to the drab colour with greyish tinge of adult birds (Figures 1–3). Specimens with collecting locality given as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh match the type specimen in morphology and measurements best (see Table 1 and 2). It is therefore assumed that the specimen was collected in or near the former trading town and harbour of Madras – a town known for its strong trading links to Calcutta. Madras and its surrounding are also the only known places within the modern range of this subspecies which were already ornithologically explored in the 19th century (Kinnear & Whistler 1930: 386). Because the given type locality of “Western Himalaya” for pallida Blyth, 1846, is erroneous (see also Paynter 1961: 380), and because no historical collecting locality could be traced, I herewith correct and restrict in accordance with recommendation 76A (ICZN 1999) 6 the type locality to Madras [Chennai], 13°06’N, 80°16’E, Coromandel Coast, SE India.

5. Blyth (1852: 344) received a good number of Indian and Sri Lankan bird specimen from a Robert W. G. Frith (died before 1879) who himself published papers on Indian natural history. Frith had good (trading?) connections to several parts of India and apparently was based in Khulna, Bangladesh, where he run an Indigo factory (Grote 1875: viii). Whether Behn had also contact to Frith and bought the type from him, however, cannot be answered. Another possible source could be Thomas Claverhill Jerdon (1811–1872) whose bird specimens from Madras are the only 19th century records from that region known to exist in British and Indian collections (Kinnear & Whistler 1930: 386). Jerdon (1863: 314–316), however, had, to his own accounts (see footnote, p. 314), never seen a specimen of pallida and relied on Blyth’s original description for the caption in Birds of India.

6. Recommendation 76A.1. (ICZN 1999) recommends for clarifying a type locality to take into account: 1. data accompanying the original material (none except the town of acquisition is given); 2. collector’s notes, itineraries or personal communications (nothing known to exist, collector unknown); 3. the original description of the taxon (therein an erroneous type locality is given); and 4. as a last resort, and without prejudice to other clarification, localities within the known range of the taxon or from which specimens referred to the taxon had been taken (this is followed here). Recommendation 76A.2. recommends the correction of erroneous type localities (also followed here).

to be continued.

Dendrocitta rufa vernayi Kinnear & Whistler, 1930: 17, becomes a junior synonym of Crypsirhina pallida Blyth, 1846, which leaves the population of the Surat Dangs and the northern and central-Western Ghats in India that formerly went under the name pallida without a name (see Sharpe 1877: 77, Oates 1889: 30–31, Blake & Vaurie 1962: 246, Dickinson et al. 2004b: 118) for which I propose.