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Bamba to Zarda - the legacy of Gregory Mathews. (1 Viewer)

James Jobling

Well-known member
England
Not only did Gregory Mathews clog up ornithological nomenclature with his myriad subspecific and specific descriptions, but he failed to provide any etymology or reasoning behind almost all of the names he created. A recent survey of the Key reveals 21 names that I have heretofore treated as "Etymology undiscovered." I have inserted the original citations and texts in the Key. Of these, millitaris and visitori have been hazarded on; ladasi, nutcheri, philordi and scrymgeouri are probably eponyms (but see nutcheri). I had always assumed that the remaining names (bamba, bandi, bebba, bilbali, braba, breda, dingi, gangi, gonada, greda, mugga, munna, publa, zamba, and zarda) were based on Australian indigenous languages that Mathews had culled from the papers of his father, Robert Hamilton Mathews (see Territornis and zanda in the Key, and Whittell, 1954, The Literature of Australian Birds, p. 506). However, with a few exceptions (see gangi, gonada, and mugga), those papers, though fascinating, did not offer any significant clues. Until proven otherwise I shall treat Gregory Mathews's names as "quasi-Aboriginal," but, meantime, try to contact the AMNH where, I understand, Mathews's mss are held.
 
James, I surely look forward to read whatever AMNH reply.

Not only did the wilful Mathews "clog up ornithological nomenclature", but he coined quite a few names that we really would like to understand. And some that simply looks, or sounds, funny. It would be truly interesting to get a grasp of how this arbitrary mind worked, especially as some of his oddball inventions/denominations are still in use (some even oozing their way into Swedish Common Bird names).

Please, keep us updated on any progress!

Björn
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[...]
I have inserted the original citations and texts in the Key. Of these, millitaris and visitori have been hazarded on; ladasi, nutcheri, philordi and scrymgeouri are probably eponyms (but see nutcheri). ...
[...]
By the way, regarding ...

scrymgeouri as in:
• the invalid subspecies "Psophodes olivaceus scrymgeouri" MATHEWS 1911 (here) ... no explanation, no dedication ... only clue "Victoria" (i.e. the State, Australia).

As per today's Key; "perhaps after Henry Scrymgeour-Wedderburn ...", but I don't think he (the 9th Earl of Dundee, Scotland) has anything to do with this bird, instead I think (i.e. guess/assume, whatever it is worth) that we ought to look for a "Mr. James I. Scrymgeour", of "Callandoon", a guy mentioned in Mathews's Birds of Australia, on p. 8, in vol. 1, 1910-1911 (here alt. here).

Who he was? I have no idea.

Björn

PS. Today's "Callandoon" seems to be located in Southernmost Queensland (as of here, or Wiki here). If it´s the same place as when Ross and Scrymgeour "took possession of" it, is equally unknown to me. But, why not? Mr Scrymgeour could, as well, have been collecting in Victoria.
 
I guess "Mr. James I. Scrymgeour" ought to be found somewhere in, or related to, this Family.

Same guy (note; James T. S. ...), here.

/B

PS. Scrymgeour's Callandoon (Station) at Goondiwindi, Queensland, not to confuse with today's Callandoon grazing property (in NSW, north of Melbourne).
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Thanks Björn. I agree that Mathews's "James I. Scrymgeour" is the stockfarmer James Tindal Steuart Scrymgeour that you have uncovered. I don't think he was a collector, but Mathews corresponded with him before Scrymgeour joined the Australian Army and was blinded in Palestine. I have not yet received a reply from AMNH, but it would appear that close scrutiny of Birds of Australia may uncover other eponymous characters.
 
mouki
Link to earlier thoughts on BF:
https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=3504429 .
Mouki child of song.…named by Mathews for reasons best known to himself—none of his lists elaborated on this name. There are few clues to the meaning of this word, though there is a suggestion in HANZAB 90-06 vol. 6 that it may be from an Aboriginal language (unspecified). We wonder if there is some connection with the Mouki Rive northern New South Wales but as the type specimen was from Cairns this is drawing a long bow.
Australian Bird Names: A Complete Guide
Jeannie Gray, Ian Fraser 2013
Birdlife Australia says that Gerygone is from Greek gerygone’, meaning ‘the children of song’.
 
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previous discussion (not very fruitful) of the eponym"Scrymgeour" here:
https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=306434&highlight=scrymgeour
Thanks James, and yes, "nartreb", I remember that old thread, the key difference between that thread (which I believed was all forgotten, ignored or simply brushed aside) versus what I posted in this thread (more recent, and still going, where scrymgeouri, once again reappeared), was that I, back in 2015, couldn't find any clear connection between James Scrymgeour and Mr Mathews, but there it was ... in the very first volume of Mathews's Birds of Australia (and from the very same years!). That´s the reason why I thought it might be worth to resurface dear old Mr Scrymgeour ... sorry if it appeared as double-posting.

If it´s truly him... well, like I said: I have no idea. Not for sure (that is, as in; not a 100% sure). But it sure looks like it could be him, doesn't it?

The piece that disturbs me (a little) is the initial given (by Mathews), of his middle name; "James I. Scrymgeour" versus what one might expect; "James T." (S.) Scrymgeour. Other than this, most pieces seems to fit. A (somewhat sloppy, scribbled, scrawled) hand-written "I." could look quite similar to a "T." ...

Note that a James Scrymgeour did collect birds, at least eggs (that is, of course; if it´s the same guy?) for the Victorian Museum (see links in the 2015 thread, especially this one; here), where the location seem to be just about a perfect match, with Scrymgeour's Callandoon (Station), Goondiwindi, Queensland.

Though, with this said, of course; I haven't search for any possible Son, or Brothers ... by the same name.

Thereby, as always; don´t hesitate to prove me wrong.

Björn
 
Mary LeCroy has kindly responded to my request for details of Mathews's MSS and Ernst Mayr's file held at AMNH. I take the liberty of quoting from her reply:
"Only rarely could I solve the derivation of his strangest names. In some of these [AMNH] type lists, I may have mentioned the derivation if I came across it. ... The only Mathews manuscripts in the AMNH are the two volumes of his catalog. Introductory material in several of my type lists includes comments on Mathews' unique approach to cataloguing. I did not find them helpful in name derivation and more often more confusing than helpful with regard to the number of specimens Mathews may have included in his type series. Hartert, in Novitates Zoologicae, had begun to try to list Mathews' types then in the Rothschild Collection; these were extremely helpful, but more often from a taxonomic standpoint than from an etymological standpoint. Mayr did have a file of Mathews' names, and I checked them as I went through each of the bird families. Unfortunately, almost without exception they were a reference to the original description and very occasionally to taxonomic questions. I think Mayr at some point hoped to do a list of Mathews' types, but this was never done."
This confirms that Mathews was a nomenclatural maverick, and that we search for such nuggets as we may in his Birds of Australia, or, as further suggested by Mary, in the collectors' itineraries referenced in her typelist series (http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/).
 
Thanks James, ... well, if Mary LeCroy at the AMNH (American Museum of Natural History) couldn't help, maybe it can be worth trying a similar approach to the Staff at National Library of Australia (in Canberra), as they seem to have quite an extensive "Manuscripts Collection" of Mathews (see this earlier post, from back in 2016) ...

Just an idea.

/B
 
Mathews extravaganza

I took the liberty to move (or, more like, gather) all the obscure names coined by Gregory Macalister Mathews, earlier listed in James's looong thread HBWAlive Key; mission accomplished or mission impossible? and placed them all in this one. This was made simply to weed out what suddenly have grown into an almost incalculable thread, simply to make some space, in an attempt to make the "HBWAlive Key; mission" possible, or at least somewhat easier, to grasp.

As the many (odd) names by Mathews are some of the most insoluble (if not, at least very tricky) ones of all names, I thought they would be better off in a thread of their own (i.e. this one ;)), simply as I expect them to be easier to handle together, better to keep all of his "eggs" in one basket. If we can solve either one of them, others might follow ... who knows?

The green ones have been dealt with earlier in the "HBWAlive Key; mission ..." thread (here), and the black ones, well, they are still all waiting for anyone keen, feeling up to it, eager on giving them a go.

The remaining ones, all still unsolved, all coined by Mathews, are as follows – from audoni to zarda:

audoni as in "Sphecotheres flaviventris audoni" MATHEWS 1911 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

bamba as in "Pomatorhinus temporalis bamba" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [ [today's Key; here]

bandi as in "Munia bichenovii bandi" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

bilbali as in "Anthus australis bilbali" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

braba as in "Gliciphila melanops braba" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

breda as in "Philemon orientalis breda" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

[• brenda as in "Ptilotis unicolor brenda" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) ... added to James's original list/s by Mark, in mission thread, post #141, again dealt with in #143-145) [today's Key; here]

calconi as in "Ptilotis penicillata calconi" MATHEWS 1911 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

christopheri as in "Sterna striata christopheri" MATHEWS 1911 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

christophori as in "Gerygone tenebrosa christophori" MATHEWS 1911 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

condora as in "Acanthiza uropygalis condora" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

darbiski as in "Ptilotis unicolor darbiski" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) (see mission thread, post #141) [today's Key; here]

dingi as in "Ptilotis fusca dingi" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

disneyi as in "Ardeiralla flavicollis disneyi" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) (see mission thread, posts #229, 231–232) [today's Key; here]

enidae as in "Pachycephala enidae" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

gangi as in "Munia castaneothorax gangi" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

gonada as in "Glycifohia gonada" MATHEWS 1929 (OD here) (also see mission thread, posts #236-241) [today's Key; here]

greda as in "Pachycephala leucura greda" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

hildamariae as in "Barbatula hildamariæ" MATHEWS 1934 (OD here) (see mission thread, #96-97, 108-114) [today's Key; here]

joanae as in "Ailuroedus melanotis joanae" MATHEWS 1941 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

julietae as in "Colluricincla brunnea julietae" MATHEWS 1942 (OD, see attached excerpt) [today's Key; here]

Julietata as in "a new subgenus Julietata" MATHEWS 1943 (OD, in text, here) [today's Key; here]

ladasi as in "Ptilotis penicillata ladasi" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

monica as in "Notochibia monica" MATHEWS 1926 ("new name for Chibia densa, Sharpe, ... " (OD here) [today's Key; here]. Note: densa is not included in today's Key.

Sidetrack: "Chibia densa, Sharpe" (here) is an alteration of "Dicrurus densus, Bp. ... "ex Temm. MS. ...", thereby a mere subsequent spelling (and as such) not included in today's Key. Could possibly be added to densus as an explanation alt. variation (if mentioned) in context to monica. Or not?

mouki X 2 [today's Key here]
  • "Gerygone laevigaster mouki" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here)
  • "Zonaeginthus castanotis mouki" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here)

mugga as in "Zosterops lateralis mugga" MATHEWS 1925 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

munna X 5 [today's Key; here]
  • "Artamus personatus munna" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here)
  • "Dendrocygna eytoni munna" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here)
  • "Myzomela obscura munna" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here)
  • "Ptilotis leucoptis munna" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here)
  • "Ptilotis ornata munna" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here)

Nutchera as in "Nutchera gen. nov" MATHEWS 1918 (OD, in text here) [today's Key; here]

nutcheri X 2 [today's Key; here]
  • "Neonectris griseus nutcheri" MATHEWS 1916 (OD here)
  • "Coprotheres pomarinus nutcheri" MATHEWS 1916 (OD here)

philordi as in "Zonaeginthus guttatus philordi" MATHEWS 1911 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

publa as in "Halcyon macleayii publa" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

violetae as in "Pachycephala gutturalis violetæ" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

youngi as in "Pachycephala gutturalis youngi" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) (Also see mission thread, post #230, 232) [today's Key; here]

zamba as in "Colluricincla harmonica zamba" MATHEWS 1912 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

Zanda as in "Zanda, gen. nov" MATHEWS 1913 (OD here) [today's Key; here]

zanda X 4 [today's Key; here]:
  • "Ptilotula flavescens zanda" MATHEWS 1913 (OD here)
  • "Northiella hæmatogaster zanda" MATHEWS 1913 (OD here)
  • "Gilbertornis rufogularis zanda" MATHEWS 1916 (OD here)
  • "Pagoa zanda" MATHEWS 1916 (OD here), replacement name for "the bird figured and described ..." (here and here)

zarda as in "Ptilotis cratitia zarda" MATHEWS 1912 OD here) [today's Key; here]

Good luck in dealing with them all!

Björn

PS. I would assume, or suspect; if anyone of our Australian friends dug deep into this topic, it would be, or ought to be, possible to solve quite a few of them! While here, "Down Over", it's a completely different thing (see posts #9 and #10, this thread.) ;)

PPS. More about Mathews himself [Gregory Macalister Mathews (1876–1949)], here, or here. And his closest Family, here.

Merry X-mas!
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Dear comrades in epithetica and taxonomical etymology, reading about Mathews' s extravaganza, as Björn described it, I feel like I could spend some time at Xmas + the last week of this year in doing explorations in this troublesome field. After an explicable crash a few years ago I withdrew from this subforum; the computer somehow restored itself and I continued the activities, but only in correspondence with James Jobling. I had contact with the Societat Ornitològica de Valéncia and this resulted in some obscure eponyms of Spanish ornithologists with whom Alfred Brehm had made some expeditions ca. 1850. He traveled in Spain with his brother and his sister Thekla; his sister died there and is commemorated in the well-known sister-species of the Crested Lark. At some point in the last period of 2018 I wrote to James that I would pick up the activities - he sighed: where are all the years going? and with Xmas in mind I answered in his native style: "Forlorn the days are hastening on by prophet-bard foretold, when with the ever-circling year comes round the age of gold, when peace shall cover all the earth, it's ancient splendours fling, and all the world gives back the song which now the angels sing."
Well, apart from the solemnity of these verses I do wish you all a merry Christmas and a fruitful 2020 which may provide pleasure in our search and digging for solutions of enigmatic data. I only recently took up the habit of visiting the subforum again, because the message to James about my return met with an obstacle: the physical condition was far from cooperative and was characterized by a lengthy period of chemotherapy. My interest is still alive too, so I hope to read your messages and comments, maybe deliver some minor contributions now and again and anyway, to enjoy the contacts.
Season's greetings and best wishes for all,
Jan van der Brugge, Zevenaar NL.
 
Beste Jan,

Ik wens je een goed herstel en veel sterkte in de komende periode en ik hoop dat je je interesse in vogels en hun naamgeving niet mag verliezen.

Natuurlijk wens ik jouw en de jouwen, vredige gezonde, gelukkige en voorspoedige feestdagen en nieuwjaar toe.

Blij weer eens van je gehoord te hebben, al is 't met niet zo'n vrolijke boodschap,

Vriendelijke groet,

Fred Ruhe
 
Beste Jan,

Ik wens je een goed herstel en veel sterkte in de komende periode en ik hoop dat je je interesse in vogels en hun naamgeving niet mag verliezen.

Natuurlijk wens ik jouw en de jouwen, vredige gezonde, gelukkige en voorspoedige feestdagen en nieuwjaar toe.

Blij weer eens van je gehoord te hebben, al is 't met niet zo'n vrolijke boodschap,

Vriendelijke groet,

You should have sent this as a PM. BF is an English only site.
 
disneyi

I understood it couldn't be for Henry John de Suffren Disney(1919–2014) (born 22nd September, 1919 in Watford, England). I might be worth to look for his father as here is written:

However, he was keen to take part and through a connection of his father’s managed to volunteer for the RAF as a physical training instructor in 1940.

Maybe he did not only help him with the Royal Air Force, but also shared his passion for birds?
 
monica as in "Notochibia monica" MATHEWS 1926 ("new name for Chibia densa, Sharpe, ... " (OD here) [today's Key; here].
Once again on thin ice (dabbling with Latin) ... ;)

Could Mathews's monica possibly origin in the Latin word monicus, from moneō as in "I warn, advise" alt. "I remind"? As in him reminding, advising us, that this was not the one by Gray from 1870 ... (whichever that was?).

Or from monic, (monomorphic, not comparable) as in existing in only one single form? Even if not the only one in "Notochibia" ...

Thus not necessarily being an eponym.

Just an idea. Or two.

Björn

PS. Regarding julietae, and maybe even Julietata. One possibility less. The third given name of Mathews sister-in law "Ivy Beatrice J. White" (1883–1956), née Voss, doesn't seem to have been neither Juliet, Juliete nor Julieta (or any similar version), but Janie.

The search goes on!

/B
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Julietata MATHEWS 1943

...
P.S. Anyone knows the names of the children from Edward John Lees Hallstrom (1886-1970) and Margaret Elliott Jaffrey (1887-1968) (one son and three daughters) all from here? The second wife Mary Mabel Maguire, née McElhone seems not related to Julietata.

"Edward and Margaret Hallstrom had three girls and a boy, Grace Margaret, John Edward, Thelma Jean, and Esme Elliott. Their first child was born in December 1913 and Esme in 1918."

At least according to here.

No Juliet/e in sight ...

/B
 
You're welcome, Mark, and thank you, I´m pretty sure that book/booklet/pamphlet will reveal some of Mathews's more peculiar names! It's a pretty rare work, only printed in 200 copies.

I´ve downloaded it, and will read it closely (whenever time allows) ...

Note that we, for example; find "William Stalker (1879-1911)", mentioned on p.51, which I assume is the guy commemorated in a whole bunch of stalkeri birds ...

If he died in "1910" (as claimed in today's Key), or the year after, is unknown to me. I'd never heard of a/any Mr Stalker before I clicked on that link.

However, once again, thanks! :t:

/B
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