Neopoephila personata watsoni 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 : 107

Neopoephila personata watsoni Mathews

Neopoephila personata watsoni Mathews, 1917: 71 (Watson River, North Queensland).

Now Poephila personata leucotis Gould, 1847 . See Mayr et al., 1968: 360; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 755–756; Dickinson, 2003: 732; and Payne, 2010: 358.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 721663 , adult male, collected on the Watson River , 13.20S, 141.47E ( USBGN, 1957), Cape York Peninsula , northern Queensland, Australia, on 22 July 1914. From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews gave only the place and date of collection of the type. The above specimen is the only Watson River specimen from the Mathews Collection bearing the date of 22 July 1914. It bears, in addition to a field label, Mathews and Rothschild type labels and a ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it was the model for Mathews (1926: 252, pl. 575, upper fig., opp. p. 251), where it is confirmed as the type of watsoni. This specimen, judging by the handwriting on the field label, was almost certainly collected by William R. Maclennan, who was collecting on the Watson River in July 1914 (see Macgillivray, 1917 –1918: 77–78).

There is a second specimen, also almost certainly collected by Maclennan, from the Watson River on 18 July 1914, but because Mathews mentioned only the holotype and gave no indication that he had more than one specimen, I have not considered the second specimen a paratype. Neither specimen was cataloged by Mathews.