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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RaMa" data-source="post: 1672421" data-attributes="member: 74817">Very interesting! I had my information from Stresemann's "Entwicklung der Ornithologie" (1951), which is admittedly not the most recent source. Good to know the plates are extant!Well, I can only refer to Schneider (1938) on this matter. The oil paintings contain the names of the birds in Lingoa geral, written by the painter (apparently Albert van den Eeckhout). So I was wrong here, they were perhaps not by Marcgrave. Nevertheless, Eeckhout was in Brazil with Marcgrave and must have seen the birds himself, so I would consider the names reliable.The watercolors, by Zacharias Wagner, another of Marcgraves companions in Brazil, apparently contain notes in two different handwritings. Count Moritz von Nassau obviously added information such as the size of the birds and sometimes other details. The names however were neither written by Count Moritz nor by Wagner, whose handwriting is known from an illustrated manuscript kept in Dresden in 1938. This manuscript contains some copies of the original watercolors, but Wagner gave them different names!Schneider says of the bird names of the original watercolors:"Sie sind im Gegensatz zu den [...] Schriftzügen [des Wagner] von vollkommener Sachlichkeit und stimmen in den meisten Fällen mit denen der Oelbilder und des Marcgraveschen Textes überein"("They are in contrast to [Wagner's] writing of perfect dispassion and agree in most cases with those of the oil paintings and Marcgraves text.")Therefore Schneider concluded that the names (not the other notes) on the watercolors were by Marcgrave himself.Copies of what? For several species there are oil paintings and watercolors. Sometimes the former seem to be copies of the latter, and sometimes vice versa, although usually the watercolors are more detailed and naturalistic. Both were prepared by artists who were on place in Brazil, together with Marcgrave, and the names on the plates agree with those in Marcgraves book. To me there is no reasonable doubt that their identification with the species in Marcgraves book is reliable.So who was the author of that book? Marcgrave, who had passed away many years before? Or the editor/publisher/engraver/colorist? I'd say it isn't their intention what counts! BTW, even if Marcgrave had mixed Harrier and Falcon into his Caracara, the Harrier depicted on the watercolor would still be a syntype.I think this is contrary to taxonomic practice. What about all those Forster paintings from Cook's second voyage, that obviously served as the basis for so many of Latham's species, without ever mentioning Forster? Or, what about species where the types were not mentioned in the publication but were later identified through collection research. Basically the same problem, indirect evidence, not from the publication itself! All invalid?Highly unlikely! Schneider made it clear that all original paintings were made by only two artists, based on painting style, one for the oil paintings, one for the watercolors.Yes, some watercolors and oil paintings were missing, perhaps as early as 1660, when the oil paintings were bound together. However, Schneider (1786) missed the fact that the book was edited and illustrated long after Marcgraves death. It was not Marcgrave who copied from the paintings, it wasn't he who didn't know some animals from the paintings, it wasn't he who could only afford woodcuts (Count Moritz had instead paid for the expedition, including the painters), and it wasn't his engraver, who made those unidentifiable illustrations in the book.Schneider (1786) had called Bloch's attention to the plates, who used them for a number of copper engravings of fishes. Schneider tried to identify 13 bird species, with minimal success. Then Illiger took notice of them but died before he could publish anything. Lichtenstein continued and identified many of the bird species.Have to check the sources you listed.Rainer M.</blockquote>

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