That Bird Of
p. 24 · Read in the full issue
Paradise
Another Nome and Discoverer Claimed
Letter to the Editor I HAVE been much interested to read, recently, in your splendid maga zine, of the naming of a new Bird of Paradise, “Taeniaparadisea macni colli”. I notice that, in your January issue, there is more comment on the bird, and further mention of it as “Mc- Nicoll’s Bird of Paradise”.
In view of the interest apparently cen tred in this striking new species, I thought you would be interested to know that the above-mentioned “for midable name” is what we ornithologists call a synonym, and that the bird has been previously described.
The original description was published in the Bulletin of the British Ornitholo gists’ Club, January, 1939, vol. lix, p. 57, by Mr. C, R. Stonor. He based his de scription on the tail feathers obtained by Mr. Shaw-Mayer, giving two known localities, one Mt. Champion, the other, a point approximately 80 miles west of
Mt. Hagen. The name given by Stonor to the bird was “Astrapia mayeri”, in honour of that well-known bird collector. • Previous description thus must .^ e kird must be known as Mayer’s Ribbon-Tailed Bird of Para dise”.
As one who has had the pleasure of meeting the Administrator of the Man dated Territory, let me hasten to re mind that good sportsman that the sink ing of his name into synonomy is a matter of a routine technicality of Natural Science, and no personal reflec tion upon him. After all, to quote a well-known author, “What’s in a name*”
I am, etc.,
S. Dillon Ripley Ii.
Litchfield, Conn.