Galerita Theklae

LeCROY, M. A. R. Y., 2003, TYPE SPECIMENS OF BIRDS IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. PART 5. PASSERIFORMES: ALAUDIDAE, HIRUNDINIDAE, MOTACILLIDAE, CAMPEPHAGIDAE, PYCNONOTIDAE, IRENIDAE, LANIIDAE, VANGIDAE, BOMBYCILLIDAE, DULIDAE, CINCLIDAE, TROGLODYTIDAE, AND MIMIDAE, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 278 (278), pp. 1-156 : 23-24

Galerita Theklae minor C.L. Brehm

Galerita Theklae A.E. Brehm, 1857b: 456 (Catalonien, Valencia, Murcia und Castilien).

Galerita Theklae minor C.L. Brehm, 1858: 213 (Umgegend von Jativa, nicht weit von Valencia, und auf der Sierra nevada).

Now Galerida theklae theklae (A.E. Brehm, 1857) . See Hartert, 1910b: 67, and Cramp, 1988: 163.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 457784 , adult male, collected at Jativa , 39°00′N, 00°32′W (Times Atlas), near Valencia, Spain, on 19 June 1856, by A.E. Brehm. From the Brehm Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Hartert (1918b: 21) designated this specimen the lectotype and noted that it would be the type of both of the above taxa. Two paralectotypes also collected at Jativa are AMNH 457785, juv. male, 26 June 1856, and AMNH 457786, juv. female, 22 June 1856.

There is considerable literature concerning when and by whom Galerita theklae was described. Jürgen Haffer (personal commun.) has provided me with the following details, which would seem to settle the problem. Prior to 1910, C.L. Brehm (1858: 210) was usually credited with the first description of Galerita Theklae. Then, Hartert (1910b: 67) called attention to A.E. Brehm’s (1857b: 456) earlier description in the second part of his article on his Spanish collections.

A question then arose as to the actual publication date of the second part of this article because A.E. Brehm noted that a full description and picture would follow, but in a footnote said that the bird was named in memory of his sister. C.L. Brehm (1858: 210) then described Galerita Theklae and on a subsequent page (C.L. Brehm, 1858: 213) named the subspecies G. T. major and G. T. minor . In a footnote on p. 210, he noted that G. Theklae was named after his daughter, who had died on 6 July 1858. It then seemed certain that A.E. Brehm’s description had been published subsequent to this date. It is, however, an historical fact that Thekla Brehm died on 6 July 1857, the date given by C.L. Brehm being a misprint or a slip of the pen. The foreword to Allgemeine Deutsche Naturhistorische Zeitung, N.F. 3, in which A.E. Brehm’s description appeared, is dated January 1858, so it seems certain that A.E. Brehm’s paper was correctly dated 1857 and antedates that of his father.

Abs (1963: 22–23) called attention to Hartert’s (1910b, not 1907) article on A.E. Brehm’s Spanish collection and noted that Hartert had apparently forgotten his own article when he wrote about the species in Die Vögel der Paläarktischen Fauna, which Abs dated as 1910. However, Hartert’s account of Galerida theklae is on page 237, which was published in 1904, before Hartert had discovered A.E. Brehm’s paper. By 1918, when Hartert was treating the Brehm types in the Rothschild Collection, he had again reverted to C.L. Brehm as the author of G. theklae , without comment but perhaps because of the question surrounding the date of A.E. Brehm’s paper.

Keith et al. (1992: 103) treat G. theklae and G. malabarica (Scopoli, 1786) as conspecific.