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Message: <blockquote data-quote="l_raty" data-source="post: 3144844" data-attributes="member: 24811">What I meant was that in 1809, the concept of type species did not really exist yet: if Vieillot had then been asked which type species he intended for Troglodytes, he would probably have no clue. The concept developed in the 1820s, and became really widely used around the 1840s. (Some may find the "Historical résumé" written by Allen 1908 [<a href="http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/bitstream/handle/2246/1953//v2/dspace/ingest/pdfSource/bul/B024a01.pdf?sequence=1" target="_blank">pdf</a>] interesting.)A "first cited = type species" rule was still used by some back in 1902, albeit is was never universally agreed upon and was abandoned shortly thereafter; in the current rules, the order of citation of included species is completely irrelevant. In Analyse, <a href="https://books.google.be/books?id=i02jJBjImYkC&pg=PA44" target="_blank">Vieillot 1816</a> included in his Troglodytes: "Esp. Troglodyte, Buff--Trogl. ædon, Vieill. Ois. de l'Am." There may have been many reasons why he cited Buffon's name before his own, ranging from the seniority of Buffon's work, to simple courtliness. How do we find out?Note also that "le Troglodyte, Buffon" is not an available name, hence if a genus was to be introduced with such "included species", its type would still be Troglotytes aedon Vieillot, by original monotypy.A real Carolina Wren. Vieillot's arundinaceus is of course available. Vieillot subsequently removed it from Troglodytes, and created for it the genus Thryothorus Vieillot, 1816 [<a href="https://books.google.be/books?id=i02jJBjImYkC&pg=PA45" target="_blank">OD</a>; see also <a href="https://books.google.be/books?id=i02jJBjImYkC&pg=PA70" target="_blank">p.70</a> for OS, FR <a href="http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/64021#page/63/mode/1up" target="_blank">Vieillot 1919</a>; type species by original monotypy].(Thus the bird in question, through the nominal type species Troglodytes arundinaceus Vieillot, anchors the genus-group name Thryothorus into the real world. The type series of Sylvia ludoviciana Latham, 1790 [<a href="https://books.google.be/books?id=1vZAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA548" target="_blank">OD</a>, species-group name in use for the Carolina Wren], on the other hand, does not play any such role. This is why it is correct to say that the type species of Thryothorus is the nomenclatural concept Troglodytes arundinaceus Vieillot, 1809, but incorrect to say that it is "Thryothorus ludovicianus (Latham, 1790)". Or that it is the "real species out there" that goes by this name.)</blockquote>

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