BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="mb1848" data-source="post: 1389238" data-attributes="member: 31036">Thank you Laurent for a great education in nomenclature.  I noticed that the Perdix dauurica situation has been addressed at Zoonomen:•    Peters Checklist 2:89 gives the original combination as: Tetrao perdix var. daurica [sic] Pallas.•    Vaurie (1965) used dauurica.•    McGowan in HBW 2:505 gives the original combination as: o    P. d. dauurica (Pallas 1811)and used dauuricae.•    Sibley & Monroe 1990 p.15 used "dauuricae", but in the supplement S&M 1993 p.16 wrote: "The correct spelling of the specific name is Perdix dauurica (Stepanyan 1990a)".•    Tetrao perdix is described on p.77 of Pallas' 1811 work, and on p.78 (where "dauuricae" appears) the representation is o    "Varietatis rupestris dauuricae".The first and third words are in italics. A ten line description follows.•    I quote Normand David's discussion of the grammar that applies here:"Pallas's wording is "Varietatis rupestris dauuricae". The word varietatis is a feminine noun in the genitive case, and dauuricae is the adjective dauuricus (-a, -um) in the feminine form of the genitive case. The word rupestris is a Modern Latin adjective (derived from the classical noun rupes: rock, mountain, cavern) in the genitive case (the nominative is identical). The literal translation is: o    in French: "de la variété rupestre daourienne"o    in English: "of the Daurian rupestrian variety".IF dauuricae Pallas 1811 is available, then it falls under ICZN (Code 1999) Art. 11.9.2: dauuricae (genitive) = dauurica (nominative), or fell under ICZN (Code 1985) Art. 11 (h) (ii)."•    The significance of italics and nonitalics remains of interest. I summarize Michael Walters' email note discussing this: o    Pallas is a binomial work. His species no.226 on p.77 of vol.2 is Tetrao Perdix. Under this work he describes two varieties of the species.     "Varietatis rupestris dauuricae"    "Varietatem albam" (which is presumably an albino).It seems clear from this [second instance] that he was intending to describe a colour variety, not a taxon, thus Michael interprets that Peters' conclusion, though not his citation, [regarding "dauurica"] would appear to be correct, (i.e. that the name was not proposed in a nomenclatural sense). According to Ogilvie-Grant (Cat. Birds, 23, p.192) the only subsequent use of Pallas's name prior to Verreaux & Des Murs name barbata (1863) was Schrenck (1859) Reise. Amur-L., i, p.521.[END of summary of Michael's email]o    "Varietatis" would appear to clearly not be a name in a nomenclatural sense, and is in italics.o    "rupestris" and "albam" (not in italics) also appear not to be names in an nomenclatural sense.o    "dauuricae" (in italics) is (now) treated as a name in a nomenclatural sense, though possibly not so intended originally.o    Thus it would appear that nomenclatural intent in this work, as in many others, can not be inferred simply from the order of the words or the italicization.I do know that in "Botanical Latin"        When describing a Variety or subspecies (lower case and italicized with the word var. in non-italicized print:  Cornus florida var.         rubra (with pink to pinkish red flowers).  This is a term assigned to plants displaying a marked  difference in nature or sometimes a specific geographic distribution not designated by the species.  I am not sure why Dauurica is capitalized.  I would like to see the description of Pallas of Lepas dauuricus in 1776.</blockquote>

Verification