Entomophila borealis H.L. White

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

Entomophila borealis H.L. White

Entomophila borealis H.L. White, 1914: 187 (Macarthur River, Northern Territory).

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.

SYNTYPE: AMNH 691805, adult female, collected at McArthur Station, 16.27S, 136.07E (USBGN, 1957), McArthur River, Northern Territory, Australia, on 18 August 1913, by H.G. Barnard. From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: When naming this form, based on specimens collected by H.G. Barnard on the McArthur River, White said that it ‘‘appears to be a new sub-species of Entomophila picta . I suggest the name of Entomophila borealis …,’’ thereby introducing it as a binomial. White did not designate a type or say how many specimens he had. AMNH 691805 has an H.L. White label filled in by H.G. Barnard, which Mathews marked ‘‘Cotype G.p. borealis White’’; the number ‘‘124’’ appears in red next to Barnard’s name and may be a field number. In addition to that label, the specimen bears a Rothschild Collection label printed ‘‘Ex. coll. G.M. Mathews,’’ an AMNH type label filled in by hand unknown, and a ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it was illustrated in Mathews (1924: pl. 522, bottom fig., opp. p. 376, text p. 377), where it is said to represent G. p. borealis but no type status is indicated. Mathews did not catalog this specimen. There are two syntypes in NMV (W. Longmore, personal commun.).