Grantiella picta cloncurri Mathews

Mary, 2011, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae And Meliphagidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (348), pp. 1-193 : 152-153

Grantiella picta cloncurri Mathews

Grantiella picta cloncurri Mathews, 1915a: 133 (Cloncurry, Queensland).

Now Grantiella picta (Gould, 1838) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 435, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 308, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 691.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 691806 , adult, collected at Cloncurry, 20.41S, 140.30E (Times Atlas), Queensland, Australia, undated, received from [W.D. K.] MacGillivray. From the Mathews Collection (no. 18504) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the description of this form, Mathews said that the type was from Cloncurry but mentioned no range. His only specimen from that locality was one of the last specimens he cataloged, but he did not mention this number in his description. The holotype bears a small locality tag, on the reverse of which Mathews has written ‘‘Mac- Gillivray’’; Mathews and Rothschild type labels; and a ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it was illustrated in Mathews (1924: pl. 522, middle fig., opp. p. 376, text p. 376), where it is confirmed as the type of cloncurri. The description is of an adult male, even though this specimen is not sexed, but with the statement that ‘‘The sexes are alike.’’ The middle figure in pl. 522 does not have the sex indicated. My measurements of the holotype agree with those of Mathews: total length 160 mm, exposed culmen 13, wing 90, tail 55, tarsus 18, except that I measured the tail as 54 mm.

The specimen, said to be from MacGillivray, was cataloged by Mathews in 1914, after returning from his visit to Australia, during which he probably acquired it. W.R. McLennan, while collecting for MacGillivray in 1909, had his base for a time at Cloncurry ( Whittell, 1954: 476). The above specimen may have been collected at that time but does not appear to be a McLennan specimen, both because the minimal data on the label does not appear to be in McLennan’s hand and because the legs are not tied together above the tibiotarsal joint, a characteristic of McLennan’s specimens. On the other hand, Mathews (1924: 381) noted that ‘‘Mr. A.J. North had written me in 1908: ‘I examined a collection made at Cloncurry which contained this bird.’ I then described such a bird as Grantiella picta cloncurri .’’ Whether there is any connection between this holotype and the collection mentioned by North is unknown.