Hello Hugo,
About 20 to 15 years ago I delved into this, certain that cirrocephalus is
correct and that cirrhocephalus makes little sense, not that I know anything
about that language. See HANZAB intro to the species, that says "but the
insertion of the first aitch was incorrect." Then I don't understand why they
persist with the error. Seems silly to me. Also I noted that most of the early
texts used cirrocephalus and that cirrhocephalus came in later. It then
appeared for no reason that I can think of to have been frequently copied
thereafter. I asked Dr Richard Schodde about it all those years ago and I'm
sure he said he has seen the original description and that cirrocephalus is the
correct spelling. I tried pushing the issue for a little while but not a lot
that can be done with that. I wrote to Stephen Debus after he did the summary
article on the species in Aust Bird Watcher sort of complaining that he had not
clarified the issue and error as it would have been a good opportunity to do
so. Stephen is normally so reliable and accurate in such things. Maybe he
thought it was not an issue. In a moment of weakness or maybe because I have
not personally seen the real evidence, I too used the wrong spelling in my
Canberra Birds book.
Philip
|
