Has anyone picked up on the fact that in HBW 4, Robert Payne, the world's
leading
authority on the Cuculidae, splits horsfieldi from saturatus, on the basis of
song and size(see p.512). I pointed out to Payne that Ian Mason in Schodde &
Mason 1997 points out that optatus Gould,1845, was incorrectly referred to the
synonymy of C.saturatus saturatus by Junge,1937,Temminckia,2,pp.197-202, on the
basis of W.Stone's lectotype. Mason points out that Stone's lectotype does not
in fact appear to be a specimen of the taxon in question. This means that that
the correct name of the form breeding in Northern Asia (Horsfield's Cuckoo) is
C.optatus Gould 1845. As this is the form that migrates to Australia, Oriental
Cuckoo (C.saturatus) should be taken off the Australian list. As far as I can
discover, it doesn't extend beyond Indonesia.
Any interest?
John Penhallurick
-----------------------------------------------------
This message was sent from the University of Canberra
using Endymion MailMan.
http://www.endymion.com/products/mailman/
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
