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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mb1848" data-source="post: 1796806" data-attributes="member: 31036">I do not know if this matters but:Der vollständige Vogelfang.  (1855) Christian Ludwig Brehm.In a footnote to a Picoides discussion on page 71:“Der Americanische dreizehige Specht, Picoides americanus, Brm., ist mertlich grofer und auch eine eigene Urt.” I get a little confused by the gothic print.  This work was published before Baird’s 1858 dorsalis.  (The American three-toed woodpecker is mectlich America great, and also its own Urt.) (?????)  <a href="http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&dq=Der+vollstandige+Vogelfang&ei=aOzLS-i4NIeQsgOktZ23Aw&ct=result&pg=PA71&id=FM46AAAAcAAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false ." target="_blank">http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&dq=Der+vollstandige+Vogelfang&ei=aOzLS-i4NIeQsgOktZ23Aw&ct=result&pg=PA71&id=FM46AAAAcAAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false . </a> .  “They were never treated as identical in meaning by any author!” (Rainer) Not so!Notes on the Picidae with descriptions of new and little known species John Cassin Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Volume 15 (1864) Picoides dorsalis Baird.  “This bird is, I suspect, identical with P. americanus (Swainson)”  http://books.google.com/books?id=bctLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA194&dq="John+Cassin"+woodpecker&hl=en&ei=8unLS8vpLJSoswPe5tj6Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q&f=false .Memoirs of Hugh Edwin Strickland ... By Hugh Edwin Strickland“Of the voluminous works of M. Brehm, his last, the ' Handbuch der Naturgeschichte aller Vogel Deutschlands, ' 1831, is perhaps the least valuable, on account of the immense number of so-called new species which he has introduced, based upon the most trivial and inappreciable variations of size, form, or colour. This view of the subject, if carried out, would upset the whole fabric of systematic zoology, the very foundation of which is a belief in the reality, the permanence, and the distinguishableness of species. This author still continues his predilection for imaginary diagnoses in the memoirs which he publishes in the' Isis.”The book (Handbook) had 46 or 47 plates, containing many coloured figures of Birds.  Maybe P. americanus was one of the colored figures?</blockquote>

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