• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Links to digitized versions of original sources of bird names (11 Viewers)

Nutcracker said:
Anyone know if this is available online, please (I couldn't find it):
Bonnaterre, 1790. Tableau Encyclopédique et Méthodique des Trois Règnes de la Nature. Ornithologie (specifically Livr.38 pl.94 fig.2 1 p.208 - Perdix barbara [Alectoris barbara])
Click to expand...
I'm aware that "Livr.38 pl.94 fig.2 1 p.208" is what appears in the Zoonomen list, but I don't really understand the logic that is behind it...
For the history of the work, see: http://www.zoonomen.net/cit/jourt.html#Tabl.Encyc.Meth.Orn (or Evenhuis 2003 https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.166.1.1).
"Pl.94 fig.2" was indeed in "Livr.38" and dates from 12 May 1790; but this plate (like other plates in this work) bears vernacular names only, hence it seems out of place in a citation of the source of a scientific name; "[vol.] 1 p. 208" seems to be were the name was made available, but this was part of Livr. 51 and not published before 1 Oct 1792.
Am I missing something ?

Nutcracker said:
BHL only have an 1823 edition, with very different numbering.
Click to expand...
I see no differences in numbering, actually -- and the text seems identical too, at least at first sight.
P. 208 of BHL copy with 1823 title page: https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/51114881; compare to Björn's link above (or to [this], which looks like the bird text and insect plates from Livr. 51, bound together as a separate volume).
 
A bit off my home ground ...

Brisson (1763) lists a "Perdix Barbara. Klein." as a synonym of "Perdix rubra Barbarica" (here), which refers to a pre-linnaean (pre-1758) work: Historiae avium prodromus ... (by Klein, 1750), here. (thereby, in this context, a nomen nudum, I assume).

Though see GBIF (here).

If relevant, or not?

/B
 
[GBIF] probably inherited their 1792 attribution from [ITIS], which cite a 2005 version of Zoonomen as their source. (Indeed, the WayBackMachine of archive.com shows that Zoonomen accepted 1792 on 1 Dec 2017, but had switched to 1790 on 8 Feb 2018. This does not mean the source was cited correctly back in 2017, however -- the Dec 2017 version indicates: "1792 Tabl.Encyc.Meth.Orn. Livr.37 pl.94 fig.2 1 p.208"; Livr. 37 of the Encyclopédie included part 3 of the Tableau méthodique: [this], which included nothing at all about Barbary Partridge.)

H&M3 dated Perdix barbara to 1792 as well; H&M4 switched to 1790, with a footnote reading "For correct date see Evenhuis (2003)" -- but without any additional clarification, and I see nothing in Evenhuis 2003 that would justify this move. (Evenhuis certainly placed plate 94 in livraison 38 (not 37), and treated this as published in 1790. But he did not suggest that any scientific name was published together with that plate, and he dated p. 208 quite unambiguously to 1792.)

1792 is correct, so far as I'm concerned.
 
Well, technically, the type of Alectoris is "Perdix petrosa" by monotypy, this being a recombination (originally by Latham 1790) of Tetrao petrosus Gmelin 1789 (now in Ptilophachus), here misapplied by Kaup to another species with 'feathery' tail, with males getting small bumps on the tarsi during the mating season, and said to live in the mountains of southern Europe with habits similar to those of Perdix saxatilis (= P. saxatilis Bechstein 1805, a syn. of Alectoris graeca (Meisner 1804)).
Kaup 1829: https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/41576603
The conventionally accepted taxonomic identity of the type species is based on the assumption that Kaup was using Perdix petrosa (Gmelin 1789) sensu Temminck 1815, as was usual in his time.

The adjunction of something like "= Perdix barbara Bonnaterre" by a subsequent writer (here Peters 1934) to a type species name is taxonomy, not nomenclature. This merely indicates the valid name of the taxonomic (sub)species that said writer recognised as including the nominal type species. The type species itself remains unchanged, being, exclusively, what is left of the '=' sign; what is to the right of this sign is determined subjectively and, in principle, subject to permanent taxonomic reassessment. (I personally prefer not to use '=' signs at all for subjective synonymy statements, because I feel it is deeply misleading; but it's a very frequent practice, which is hard to ignore.) In the present case, the identity of the type specimens of Bonnaterre's name should play no role whatsoever in how the generic name Alectoris is applied; this should in principle be entirely determined by the ID of the types of Perdix petrosa.

(Note also that, in principle, Alectoris should not be used at all -- Caccabis, which was universally used for this group before Hartert 1917 claimed 'page precedence' for Alectoris, has priority by first reviser action of Gray, in 1846.)
 
Nutcracker said:
Should IOC, H&M, etc., be advised of this? Or is it better to 'let sleeping dogs lie'?
Click to expand...
I have no good answer to this question. What do you think ?
(What I know for sure is that if we start hunting this type of cases (i.e., names rejected in the period 1900-1930 for reasons that the current Code does not support), we will find more.)
 
Dunno! Caccabis sounds a nice name for them, obviously onomatopoeic. And it is better if sleeping dogs, like prime ministers, should be required to tell the truth. But equally, the nomenclatural upheaval would be a bit of a nuisance!
 
Last edited:
So far as I know, no.
I have a pdf of the relevant part if needed, but... I actually received it from you. Unless you lost it by accident, you should already have it. ;)
 
l_raty said:
So far as I know, no.
I have a pdf of the relevant part if needed, but... I actually received it from you. Unless you lost it by accident, you should already have it. ;)
Click to expand...

You are right. I remembered it (but somewhere in a lonley corner of my small brain :storm:) but couldn't find it anymore. But with your hint I found it in my mails. Thank's.
 
United States Exploring Expedition

Sterna lunata [now Onychoprion lunatus] cited as "Vol. 8: 277, 1848 [1849]"

But at BHL, only Volume 7 is dated 1848, and Volume 8 as 1858 - and Sterna lunata is on page 382 there, and with a reference to a seemingly non-existent page 277 of 1848! Page 277 in BHL's Volume 8 is all about pigeons; no terns mentioned there.

What gives, please!??
 

Similar threads

Tanny
Dr Manjeet Singh's Malasian patch revised
Replies
5
Views
18K
christineredgate
christineredgate
Tanny
Dr Manjeet Singhs Malayan Patch
12 13 14
Replies
262
Views
25K
Tanny
Tanny

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 12 (members: 0, guests: 12)
Back
Top