Fringillaria Forbesi Hartlaub

LeCroy, Mary, 2012, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 10. Passeriformes: Emberizidae: Emberizinae, Catamblyrhynchinae, Cardinalinae, Thraupinae, And Tersininae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2012 (368), pp. 1-125 : 7

Fringillaria Forbesi Hartlaub

Fringillaria Forbesi Hartlaub, 1882a (June) : 92 (Langomeri).

Now Emberiza affinis affinis Heuglin, 1867 . See Hartert, 1928: 197, Dowsett and Dowsett- Lemaire, 1993: 379, and Fry and Keith, 2004: 572–574.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 715683 , adult male, collected at Langomeri , 03.47N, 30.45E ( Chapin, 1954), Sudan, on 18 August 1881, by Emin Pasha (5 Emin Bey, no. 11). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: The brief original description by Hartlaub gave no information on the sex or number of specimens examined; one set of measurements was given and no type was designated. AMNH 715683 is the only Emin specimen of this form in AMNH. It bears four labels: (1) the original Emin label with the data cited above, his notes on the reverse and a blue ‘‘533,’’ significance unknown, and ‘‘Fring. Forbesi, n.’’ in a different hand; (2) part of a card printed ‘‘Mus. W. Rothschild’’ marked ‘‘Emin coll.’’ and ‘‘(Typus der E. Forbesi)’’ and ‘‘Or.siche. J.O. 1882’’ (apparently referring to both Ornithologische Centralblatt and Journal für Ornithologie), with the reverse annotated ‘‘ Fringillaria Forbesi, Hart , ³, Langomeri’’; (3) a blank Rothschild Museum label; (4) a Rothschild type label, with reference to the description given as ‘‘J.O. 1882 p. 324.’’

This description is often cited as ‘‘Journal für Ornithologie, 1882 (July), 30: 324’’ as was done on the Rothschild type label. However, the earlier description ( Hartlaub, 1882a: 211) is referred to there, and must have been published first. The Ornithologisches Centralblatt was a dated bulletin published soon after the meetings of the Deutsche Ornithologische Gesellschaft zu Berlin and often before the next issue of Journal für Ornithologie appeared. The reference to the description is correctly given by Paynter (1970b: 25).

Information about forbesi is expanded by Hartlaub (1882b: 324–326), where both male and female are described and where he ( Hartlaub, 1882b: 325) noted that both of the specimens were from Langomeri, although he had some doubt that both belonged to the same species, as the female was larger than the male. Later, Hartlaub (1882c: 204–205, November) had become convinced that they represented the same form, and he repeated his description of the female.

Comparing measurements given of the single bird in the original description [total length, not given; wing, 72 mm; tail, 55; tarsus, 19] with measurements given for the two birds by Hartlaub (1882b: 325) [total length, ³, 150 mm, ♀, 162; wing, ³, 72, ♀, 72; tail, ³, 54, ♀, 67; tarsus, ³, 18, ♀, 20], it is apparent from the tail length that it was the male specimen that was described. My measurements of this male holotype agree closely with those of Hartlaub, except in total length: total length, 140 mm, wing, 73, tail, 54.5, tarsus, 19. It is the specimen listed as the type by Hartert (1928: 197).