nigelli/nigellii
Isn´t it fair to say that both nigelli and nigellii (simply different spellings) does commemorate Dr. Macneill [this said irrespective of being synonyms of either (Lophophorus) Tetraogallus species] … !?
JE Gray (as other authors, I believe) sometimes added his name behind binomina where he was not the the author of the specific name (but, for example, the author of the generic name only).
Eg.: "
Chrysolophus pictus (Gray)": Gray was the author of
Chrysolophus, which is available from this plate, but
Phasianus pictus is unquestionably of Linnaeus 1758 [
OD]. So it is conceivable that, in "
Tetraogallus Nigellii Gray", Gray was the author of
Tetraogallus (available from this plate) only, and
Nigellii but a subsequent (and incorrect) use of Jardine & Selby's specific name.
(Note that this could affect the identity of the type species of the genus.)
PS - Note that
GR Gray's letter is a bit misleading, though, in that it first discusses
plate 76 of J&S's Illustrations of ornithology, which shows a female bird described as
Lophophorus Nigelli, than plate 141 of the same work [if anyone finds the 3rd volume of it online, please let us know as well
], which shows a Himalayan bird that the authors believed to be a male of the same species, and then finally
JE Gray's plate, which GR Gray says is the same taxon as J&S's second bird, and goes by the same name as both. This incorrectly suggests that Jardine & Selby themselves "extended" the scope of their
Nigelli to include the Himalayan bird, and Gray just followed. But, in fact, plate 141 of
Illustrations of ornithology was published in 1835, 3 years
after Gray's plate, thus the one who first applied "
Nigelli(i)" to a Himalayan bird must have been Gray; it is J&S who were the followers.
