No Longer "McNicoll's Ribbon-
p. 32 · Read in the full issue
The Naming Of That
Species
No Longer "McNicoll's Ribbon- Toiled Bird of Paradise"
FTIHE gods have fought on the side of J. the Administrator of New Guinea.
Some months ago, he resisted vali antly the proposal of the Australian Museum authorities to name the newly discovered New Guinea bird of paradise “Taeniaparadisea Macnicolli” or, in other words, “McNicoll’s Ribbon-tailed Bird of Paradise”. He thought the name of the bird’s discoverer (J. L. Taylor) should be used. But Science defeated him, and the bird was named accordingly.
But, since then, it has been ascer tained that the British Museum previously had examined a pair of tail-feathers sent by Mr. F. S. Mayer, who obtained them from a missionary in Papua in 1938. The British Museum deduced, from the feathers, the existence of a new kind of bird-of-paradise, and named it, in Feb ruary, 1939, “Astrapia Mayeri”. This was several months before Mr. Taylor brought his specimens out of the New Guinea hinterland.
In the Australian Museum Magazine, of March, 1940, Mr. J. R. Kinghorn, C.M.Z.S. (who named the bird) recounts these circumstances, and says that the British scientific name and his generic name must be retained, and he con cludes:—“Hence, the scientific name will become ‘Taeniaparadisea Mayeri’ ”.
And so “Taeniaparadisea Macnicolli” disappears from the records, and the Mandated Territory’s official head need feel no embarrassment when next he meets a bird of paradise.
MR. R. FYFE, of the Fiji Medical De partment’s staff, is now in England on six months’ leave.