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HBWAlive Key; mission accomplished or mission impossible? (3 Viewers)

Zoonomen has Siptornis (f.) Reichenbach 1853 Handb.spec.Orn.(Icon.Syn.Av.no.10) p.146,171 so maybe Palaeornis is female and since dupha is a noun it must match gender??
 
Sorry Mark, I cannot follow ...

What has "Siptornis (f.) Reichenbach 1853" got to do with Palœornis vs Palæornis?

The latter ones was used/coined far earlier.

Björn

PS. Even if ornis is female I fail to see how this would have any influence on the (mid-) -oe-/-ae- parts.
Gender is normally indicated at the very end of (scientific) names.
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mb1848 said:
Zoonomen has Siptornis (f.) Reichenbach 1853 Handb.spec.Orn.(Icon.Syn.Av.no.10) p.146,171 so maybe Palaeornis is female and since dupha is a noun it must match gender??
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In Latin, adjectives agree in gender (as well as number and grammatical case) with the noun they qualify; nouns do not. If "duphaä" is not an adjective, its formation should not have been affected by the gender of Paloeornis.

ὄρνις (ornis) is a noun of common gender in Greek: a word that can be used as either masculine or feminine, usually depending on the biological sex of the denoted creature -- thus, "ὁ ὄρνις", masculine = the bird / the he-bird; "ἡ ὄρνις", feminine = the she-bird (this was often used for hens). Under the current Code, the gender of a name ending in such a word depends on how the original author used it in the OD. Siptornis is feminine because Reichenbach originally used it as a feminine word (for a species he called S. flam(m)ulata -- a feminine adjective). Palaeornis is masculine because Vigors used it as masculine (including under it: [P.] torquatus, bitorquatus, xanthosomus, erythrocephalus, pondicerianus; also calling one species a "P[alaeornis] sanguineo-coccineus" in one of the diagnoses). But our current rules have not always be followed in the past; thus Palaeornis has also been used as feminine by some authors (e.g., as "Palaeornis torquata"); and Siptornis has been treated as masculine too. It's not really possible to see which (if any) gender McClelland had in mind for his "Paloeornis".

-ae is a genitive ending used for a-stem words in Latin; these words include genuine Latin words with a nominative singular in -a, and some Greek nouns passed into Latin with a nominative singular in -e (Gr: -η), -as (Gr.: -ας), or -es (Gr.: -ης). Latin adjectives in -a are always feminine; most Latin nouns in -a are feminine too, but some are masculine (just as, e.g., in Spanish); Greek nouns in -e are feminine, Greek nouns in -as or -es are masculine.
An -ae ending in a name formed from a masculine personal name ending in -a (-a inflected to -ae as if the name was a Latin noun) is perfectly normal whatever the gender of the dedicatee (i.e., not indicative of this gender); an -ai ending in such a name (unmodified name + -i, a much more artificial variant than -ae) should in principle indicate a man; an -aae ending (= "-aä" if ä stands for ae) is not something I can remember having seen, but might arguably indicate a woman (unmodified name + -ae: feminine equivalent of the "more artificial" masculine variant -ai). For a people rather than a person, a genitive plural (-arum / -orum) would in principle be more expectable, I believe.
 
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Calalp said:
Or was it just a typo by McClelland, alt. a Printers error (as in the Printshop having a hard time keeping those similar ligatures apart)?
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It's not possible to tell for sure whether the change of spelling was intentional or not, which makes it an incorrect subsequent spelling (i.e., an unintentional change, not an available name) under the Code.

(It doesn't make sense etymologically, anyway, thus if intentional it would be hard to understand the motivation behind it.
Nomenclators have traditionally tried to register all introductions of variant spellings, but this record is in fact very far from being complete. In my experience, it's not at all rare that searching Google for a variant spelling, listed (e.g. by Neave or Richmond) from a particular publication, produces half a dozen of instances of the same spelling in earlier publications. Also, spelling variants appearing in the more obscure, or less primarily ornithological, publications are regularly not recorded at all.)
 
Thanks Laurent, for yet another excellent explanation, a true concise Latin gender lesson! :t:

Now I feel pretty safe believing that McClelland's "Paloeornis" truly, simply was an incorrect subsequent spelling of Palaeornis, VIGORS 1825. Great, no changes in my MS needed ...

The other (less crucial) issue of post #120 was to point out (for James) that the former name, isn't included in today's Key (not even as a "Var." of Palaeornis). The same goes for duphaë (but in that case, only as an Original spelling), for duphaa.

And I might as well add (apparently being in a pernickety mood); that the "Palaeornis ..." in the Key's quote for cuculio is, as demonstrated, incorrect. The proper quote, from McClelland 1837, ought to be "Paloeornis ..." [sic]. A quote is a quote. Proper to the letter, mistakes and all ... ;)

/B
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Here's a post, presumably of little value (mostly for the fun of it, or simply as a matter of curiosity), related to ...

daphanea as in:
• the Golden Eagle subspecies Aquila chrysaetos daphanea SEVERTZOV 1888 (here, in French) as "Aquila daphanea Hodgs."

The German entomologist Dr. Klaus Warncke (1937–1993), who described and coined the names of 887 taxa (in Insecta, Hymenoptera, Apoidea), had the peculiar habit of naming (quite a few) Bees after Birds! At least according to Stephan M. Blank & Manfred Klaus, 1994 (here):
5. Etymology
Due to Warnckes previous interest in ornithology, he tended to name new bee taxa according to latin bird names. Numerous names of birds from Europe and the Near East have been used, which may be unknown to entomology specialists. In order to document the correct original orthography of the names and to facilitate grammatically correct changes of names in new combinations, we list the bird name from which the bee name is presumably derived.
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Among "his" Bees we find, for example; the species Allodape oriola (1979) after the Oriole Oriolus oriolus, the species Andrena bonasia (1969) after the Hazel Grouse Bonasa bonasia, as well as the ssp. Andrena asiatica oxyura (1975) after the Stiff-tailed Duck Oxyura sp., or the ssp. Andrena astrella fulica (1974) after the Coot Fulica atra ... and so on. A self-willed, peculiar nomenclature, to say the least.

In 1974 he also, according to the same paper, described Andrena daphanea (the very reason for this post), but apparently with no explanation of its etymology (OD* unseen by me). Probably for the Eagle ssp. ...

Yes, a post of little use, simply posted to prevent anyone from the unwarranted work in finding the OD of the latter Bee (like I did), simply in hope to solve the etymology of the Eagle ssp. As in it possibly having the same etymology ...

Anyone keen would probably spend their time better trying to find daphanea in a text by Hodgson ... which, as we all know by now, is easier said than done. ;)

Good luck solving it!

Björn

____________________________________________________________________________
* Warncke, K. 1974. Beitrag zur Kenntnis und Verbreitung der Sandbienen in Nordafrika (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Andrena).
Mitteilungen aus dem Zoologischen Museum in Berlin 50 (1): 1 - 53 (on 48-49).
 
Calalp said:
Anyone keen would probably spend their time better trying to find daphanea in a text by Hodgson ... which, as we all know by now, is easier said than done. ;)
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Just finding it is rather easy, actually: it's [here], as "A. ? Daphanea, 683."
Doing something of this is a whole different issue...

Severtsov didn't explain (or at least I can't find it), but he probably adopted the name merely on geographical grounds, for what he regarded as the 'species' of Golden Eagle occurring in Nepal where Hodgson had been working. But the query after the genus name in Hodgson's list seems to indicate that he doubted this bird was a true Aquila... which might arguably be a bit surprising if the bird had been a Golden Eagle of any kind.
 
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According to Carol Inskipp, here; "Hodgson birds list Volume I (521.5 KB)":

Page: No.75.
Current Name: Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos
Hodgson Name: Aquila daphanea
Bird Number: 683
Listed in Grays catalogue “Nepal”: 1st N 683, 2nd
Listed in BM catalogue: Aquila chrysaetus
Breeding described by Hodgson: ---
Location, dates, comments from Hodgson: 10/12 Sheopuri

/B
 
l_raty said:
Severtsov didn't explain (or at least I can't find it)
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This doesn't seem to be the first valid use of the name, though. It was apparently used earlier in a work titled "Ornithologie du Turkestan et des pays adjacents", in 1888, by Menzbir. (Also listed in Russian as "Орнитология Туркестана и сопредельных стран".) I can't find this work online right now, unfortunately.
 
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Calalp said:
This one?
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No, this is something entirely different. The work is most likely in French, because it is cited with a French title by many (even if not all) Russian sources. It's a work that was started by Severtsov, but finalised and published by Menzbir in 1888-1893, after Severtsov's death.
 
l_raty said:
No, this is something entirely different. ...
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Ok, fair enough, Laurent ... but maybe this Piece; Études sur les variations d’âge des Aquilines palearctiques leur valeur taxonomique, (all in French), pp. 84-118, with 7 Plates, here from 1898 (or, more likely, bound together in -98) could shed some light ... apparently by "N. A. Sewertzow" (according to here), which most likely is the "Oeuvres posthumes ..." referred to here alt. here ... (if so, it is from 1885, when "Livrasion 3" seems to have been published, as of here) ...

If nothing else, on one of the Plates in the same work, first (and latter) link above, we find two feathers (Fig 6,7) of "Aq. fulva daphanea" (here) ... !!

Any clearer?

Björn

PS. Doesn't this mean (regardless of the Aquila c./f. part) that it ought to be; ... daphanea SEVERTZOV 1885 ... ?
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All recent authorities give daphanea Severtzov 1888 (e.g. Bds. Pal. Fauna, Non Pass., 1965, p. 191; Handb. Bds. India Pakistan, I, 1968, p. 273; Checklist Bds. World, I, 2nd ed., 1979, p. 382; Bds. W. Palearctic, II, 1980, p. 234; H&M 4, 2013, I, p. 242; Illustrated Checklist, 2014, I, p. 532). All treat daphanea Hodgson 1844 as a nomen nudum, although, etymologically, that is the source of the name and not Severtzov.
 
I have to agree with Björn -- the date should be 1885.

The Richmond index has Ornithologie du Turkestan (1888) only. (Plus a card with a ref. to "Berez. & Bianchi" (1891) having cited the name as published in Орнитологическая география Европейской России (1882); but the name is not there.)
In more recent sources, somewhat oddly, the name is apparently cited from Oeuvres posthumes in Nouv. Mém. Soc. Imp. Naturalistes Moscou, but with the year of publication of Ornithologie du Turkestan retained.
In addition to the date on the wrapper and title page of this livraison, which is indeed 1885, Severtsov's introduction of the name there is cited in J. Ornithol. in 1886 [here]. Thus the publication was clearly not delayed to 1888.
 

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