Tiaris wrote:Just try to obtain some of Matthews detailed early literature on finches & see how ground-breakingly interesting this very old bird info is if you can get hold of it.
Have just spent a few hours trying to track down some copies. Looks like I'll have to go to a real library with actual, physical books in it...
Articles and papers are relatively easy to get online these days, but books are a different fettle of kish.
Many citations of Mathew's work, but none of his actual work. He was an interesting character.
It seems he was a lumper at the beginning and end of his career, but a dedicated splitter while composing his 'Birds of Australia'. As well as
macgillvrayii (which Keast (1958, EMU 58:219-246) lumped with
minor, where it has since remained), Mathews erected
Estrilda (now
Neochmia)
temporalis tregellasi (Mathews, 1912) and
E. t. ashbyi (Mathews, 1923). Neither of these putative subspecies has been recognised by anyone else, so far as I can tell. Keast studied the type specimen of
macgillvrayii (at the American Museum of Natural History) as well as the specimens at the Australian Museum in Sydney where he was based.
crocnshas wrote:i would love to get hold of that book by Mathews
So would I, though he wrote a few. Tiaris, which would you recommend we try to track down?
The big one is his Birds of Australia, which is where the less-accepted subspecies seem to have originated from. It is a 12 volume monster, seen as one of the "big three" illustrated, encyclopaedic works on Australian Birds (The others being John Gould's 'Birds of Australia' and HANZAB). I was idly searching the antiquarian sites thinking I might find copies for sale when this dashed my hopes: "The Birds of Australia 1910-28 by Gregory Mathews is a monumental work which took over 18 years to produce, comprising over 630 superb original hand coloured lithographs, drawn by J. Keulemans, R. Green and H. Gronvold. Rarer than John Gould’s work on Australian birds, with only 225 sets ever produced, most of which are in institutional collections and the last record of the complete individual lithographs being offered for sale in Australia was over 20 years ago" (from
http://www.antiqueprintroom.com/catalog ... 1e10753ff1)
crocnshas wrote:does he also mention crimsons as i have read there is subspecies again of WBs around the Gulf of Carpenteria? which are grey on the belly,
I'll have a look for you when I get to a real library and can have a read, but I could find no reference to this grey-bellied white-bellied crimson. I think it may have been another of Mathew's less-supported subspecies.
Tiaris wrote:No recent or current texts or taxonomists will contain previously recommended subspecies or even localised racial variants as separate forms at all as recent taxonomic trendy thought is to lump em all together
This is partially because lots of previously described subspecies have been inadequately described or based on an insufficient number of specimens. The recent trend had been to lump, but the wave of descriptions of numerous cryptic species over the last ten or fifteen years hinted at unsuspected diversity within groups of outwardly similar birds, and the rise and rise of molecular methods and cladistics have seen species numbers tending upwards again to the point where I reckon the splitters far exceed the lumpers in the halls of academic ornithology today.
Tiaris wrote:This does no favours to anyone wishing to identify or seek factual evidence of differing natural forms of any bird species.
Couldn't agree more. It requires numerous hours of reading through original descriptions and subsequent literature to get a handle on a single species and its intraspecific variation. Even so, often one gets unresolvable conflicts in the literature, or the literature is plainly inadequate.
Tiaris wrote:Speaking to a couple FNQ local finchos & a more southern native finch subspecies authority whose knwledge I trust, they tell me (& I believe them) there is a clear geographic separation between minor & temporalis and the no mans land between is nowhere near Claudie River which is toward the north eastern end of minor's natural range.
This kind of local knowledge is clearly more valuable in many ways than Mathew's work; writing as he was from England with an academic agenda which clearly influenced his taxonomic decisions. However it is impossible for most people to obtain, and not recognised by the scientific commmunity (Shame, their loss).
crocnshas wrote: This is very interesting so here are some of my thoughts,minor,comes from tropical far Nth Aust and gone its own way in regards to colour/size ect,has very lightgrey to white body colour and full chrome yellow back and wings.I believe this bird has adapted to the constant heat in having these lighter colours to reflect it as i will come to with lofty...
... The further North lighter and further South darker in colour differance, Craig
It is very interesting stuff, and i like your theory, Croc. Testable, too (the best kind of theory).
Only problem is then you've gotta ask why Australian swans and cockatoos tend to be black.