Ptilonorhynchus violaceus dulciae Mathews

Lecroy, Mary, 2014, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 12. Passeriformes: Ploceidae, Sturnidae, Buphagidae, Oriolidae, Dicruridae, Callaeidae, Grallinidae, Corcoracidae, Artamidae, Cracticidae, Ptilonorhynchidae, Cnemophilidae, Paradisaeidae, And Corvidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2014 (393), pp. 1-165 : 86

Ptilonorhynchus violaceus dulciae Mathews

Ptilonorhynchus violaceus dulciae Mathews, 1912a: 438 (Queensland) .

Now Ptilonorhynchus violaceus violaceus (Vieillot, 1816) . See Mathews, 1913a: 308; 1926: 297–304; Hartert, 1929a: 55; Mayr and Jennings, 1952: 5– 6; Gilliard, 1969: 344–354; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 630–631; and Frith and Frith, 2004: 362– 365; 2009a: 400–401.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 679418 , adult male, collected in ‘‘ Queensland,’’ undated, by Cockerell. From the Mathews Collection (no. 4999) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype and gave the wing measurement of the type as 166 mm. By 1913, Mathews (1913a: 308) already considered dulciae a synonym of P. v. violaceus . The holotype bears, in addition to Mathews and Rothschild type labels, a label from Museum Boucard, and a Mathews ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it served as the model for Mathews (1926: pl. 581, opp. p. 297; text p. 298), where he said that the figured adult [male] was the type of dulciae, although there he gave the wing measurement as 171 mm. On page 304 he listed dulciae, but rather cryptically noted that he had admitted only two subspecies in his 1913 ‘‘List’’ ( Mathews, 1913a: 308), where dulciae was synonymized. Hartert (1929a: 55) pointed out the discrepancy in reported measurements and the synonymy of dulciae with nominate violaceus .

The provenance of this specimen does not allow more precise determination of the collecting locality. As Hartert (1929a: 55) noted, the label bearing the locality ‘‘Queensland’’ is printed as being from the Museum Boucard (not Boncard). In Mathews’ catalog, the specimen was listed as coming from the dealer Rosenberg and cataloged on 7 September 1910. Boucard died in 1904 ( Anonymous, 1905b), and both Rothschild and Mathews are known to have bought Boucard specimens from Rosenberg after Boucard’s death.

Whittell (1954: 154–157) provided an astounding amount of information on J.F. Cockerell and his father, J.T. Cockerell, who collected widely in Australia and other parts of the southwest Pacific in the late 19th and early 20th century, but given the undated label, no further information on the exact collecting locality of the type of dulciae is obtainable, nor is it clear which of the Cockerells collected it.

In his original description, Mathews gave the range of dulciae as ‘‘ South Queensland and North New South Wales.’’ No other Mathews specimens of this bowerbird in AMNH are from south Queensland. Howev- er, there are three from northern New South Wales, and these are considered paratypes of dulciae: Tweed River , AMNH 679377 (Mathews no. 7003), male, May 1893, from T. Thorpe ; AMNH 679378 (7002), male, May 1895, from T. Thorpe ; AMNH 679385 (5000), female, August 1907, from P. Schrader. All were cataloged by Mathews before the publication of dulciae. The following specimen is a possible paratype, but I did not find it in Mathews’ catalog: Port Macquarie , AMNH 679406 , male, 30 November 1909, from Tost & Rohu (Sydney dealers) .