Garrulus rufescens Reichenow, 1897 : 123

Steinheimer, Frank D., 2009, The type specimens of Corvidae (Aves) in the Museum für Naturkunde at the Humboldt-University of Berlin, with the description of a new subspecies of Dendrocitta vagabunda, Zootaxa 2149 (1), pp. 1-49 : 9-10

Garrulus rufescens Reichenow, 1897: 123

TL: Nördliches Jünnan [Northern Yunnan], Sikkim; restricted to Northern Yunnan ( Vaurie 1959: 143; but see below).

Now Garrulus glandarius sinensis Swinhoe, 1871 . See Vaurie 1959: 143, Blake & Vaurie 1962: 233, Dickinson et al. 2004b: 114.

SYNTYPES: ZMB 32628. [Juvenile]. Loc.: Ta-tsien-lu-ting, Sichuan [? Daxiang Ling, China]. Date [not given]. Coll.: Paul Kinsbourg. [S, Mus, Meise MS]. ZMB 2002.598. [Formerly registered together with ZMB 32628 under one number]. [Juvenile]. Loc.: Ta-tsien-lu-ting, Sichuan [ China]. Date [not given]. Coll.: Paul Kinsbourg. [S, Mus].

COMMENTS: Only these two ZMB specimens fit Anton Reichenow’s (1847–1941) description. Both are juveniles of Garrulus glandarius sinensis . Reichenow attributed the collecting locality of these specimens to “Northern Yunnan ” whereas the two skins are labelled as coming from Sichuan. Both specimens were originally registered under one number and marked as types in the register and on their labels. Paul Kinsbourg (as Kingsbourg on the label) was a natural history dealer in Paris (ZMB archives, Sign. SII, Akte K). A third bird mentioned in Reichenow (1897: 123) as being from Sikkim and collected by Henry John Elwes (1846–1922), has not been traced in the ZMB collection. Elwes travelled extensively in Asia, where he studied birds, butterflies and plants. He was also the president of the British Ornithologists’ Union in 1921–1922 ( Warr 1996). More than 20 years after Reichenow’s description, Hartert (1918: 430) coined a new name interstinctus based on three specimens of the same taxon. Two of them were collected by Elwes in Darjeeling , Sikkim, in 1883 (AMNH 626627 and 626628). One of these might have been the specimen seen by Reichenow but no evidence has been found on this in the ZMB archives (index to Zool. Mus. Sign. S. II; Zool. Mus. S.II, Giglioli, H.: 2–3, Hartert, E.: 21–22 [from Tring Museum]).