PETERS CHECK - LIST OF BIRDS OFCHECK THE - LIST WORLD OF BIRDS OF THE WORLD VOLUME XVI COMPREHENSIVE INDEX VOLUME XVI COMPREHENSIVE INDEX digitaliseret af MBP, NavnegruppenRAYMOND A. PAYNTER, JR. 1 2 Peters Check List - Index - volume XVI CHECK-LIST OF BIRDS OF THE WORLD VOLUME XVI COMPREHENSIVE INDEX RAYMOND A. PAYNTER, JR. CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY 1987 digitaliseret af MBP, Navnegruppen 3 COPYRIGHT 1987 BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 4 Peters Check List - Index - volume XVI PREFACE James Lee Peters began his association with the Museum of Comparative Zoology while still a Harvard student, and after graduating in 1912 served the MCZ in voluntary capacities at various times for fifteen years. In 1921 he was appointed an, „associate“ of the museum. One of his duties was to prepare, under the direction of Outram Bangs, Curator of Birds, a card catalogue of the MCZ bird collection, following Bowdler Sharpe’s Hand-list of the Genera and Species of Birds (1899- 1909). This was a tedious task inview of the size of the existing collection and the avalanche of new specimens pouring into the museum. The job was made especially complicated by the many new taxa that had been described since Sharpe’s time and also because ornithological systematics was coming of age and many of Sharpe’s „species“ were now recognized as taxa of polytypic species. As Peters tried to reconcile Sharpe’s increasingly obsolescent Hand-list with the then-current taxonomy, it was apparent that it was time for a new compilation. It is not known precisely when Peters decided to prepare such a work, but probably it was in 1927, the year in which Thomas Barbour, a vigorous, enthusiastic, and, above all, actively supportive person, became Director of the MCZ and a rejuvinated museum began to reflect the traits of its new leader. The year 1927 also marks the time Peters moved from „associate“ status to that of Assistant Curator of Birds. Volume I of the Check-list of Birds of the World, published by Harvard University Press, appeared in 1931, a year before the death of Outram Bangsand the subsequent appointment of Peters as full Curator of Birds. Six succeeding volumes came out at roughly three-year intervals, the first five under the imprint of Harvard University Press and the sixth issued by the MCZ in 1951. To this point 2,300 pages had been published, or about one-third of the eventual total. Even if he could have maintained this rate Peters might have been in his nineties when Volume XV completed the project. However, around the late 1940’s, apparently recognizing the unlikely prospect that he would finish his monumental task, Peters had asked his good friend John T. Zimmer, an equally meticulous worker, to prepare the manuscript for the Tyrannidae, which was to occupy much of Volume VIII. It is not known whether Peters had planned to ask for assistance from other ornithologists. He was at work on Volume IX when he died suddenly in April 1952 at the age of 62. digitaliseret af MBP, Navnegruppen 5 The following year James C. Greenway, Jr., who had been at the MCZ since 1930, became Curator of Birds and assumed responsibility for completing the Check- list. The year 1953 also marked the arrival at the museum of Ernst Mayr, as Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology; and he joined Greenway’s efforts to complete „Peters’ Check-list.“ Together they solicited manuscripts from a number of specialists and in 1957 secured a grant from the National Science Foundation for a revolving fund to help finance the publication by the MCZ of the remaining volumes. Unfortunately, John T. Zimmer died this same year and before his manuscript had been edited. It is interesting to observe how after the death of Peters the project expanded from one man’s useful, carefully prepared compilation into an international effort whose collaborators specialized in certain families and, at times, even particular geographical areas within these families. Eventually 33 ornithologists were to be involved in the completion of this work. Because manuscripts were not always available in the sequence in which the families were to be ordered and the volumes numbered, publication was whenever the manuscripts for a given volume were ready. Volume IX appeared in 1960 and Volume XV in 1962, both under the editorship of Mayr and Greenway. While Volume XV was in press Greenway left the MCZ and Raymond A. Paynter, Jr., who had been Greenway’s assistant since 1953, became Curator of Birds and assumed an active role in editing future volumes and handling the business aspects of the growing project. Volume X, jointly edited by Mayr and Paynter, came out in 1964. In 1967, 1968, and 1970, Volumes XII, XIV, and XIII, edited by Paynter, were published. Melvin A, Traylor, Jr., Curator of Birds at Field Museum of Natural History, assumed the editorship for Volume VIII, the bulk of which contained Zimmer’s long-awaited treatment of the Tyrannidae, and this appeared in 1979. Volume I, coming at the beginning of the project while Peters was honing his skills and establishing a pattern, had become badly obsolete. It was decided that a completely rewritten second edition was needed. Thirteen collaborators prepared manuscripts under the editorship of Mayr and of G. William Cottrell, who had been associated with the MCZ since i960. The second edition of Volume I was published in 1979. This was followed in 1986 by Volume XI, also under the editorship of Mayr and Cottrell, which, except for this Comprehensive Index, completed the project that had been conceived more than six decades earlier. 6 Peters Check List - Index - volume XVI As J. L. Peters’ successor at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, I am, of course, pleased that this huge and lengthy project has finally been finished. The Check- list must stand as a monument to the initiative and commitment of Peters. However, it should also be remembered that twothirds of the Check-list represents an outstanding example of a cooperative, international endeavor, on a scale unique in ornithology, and that its completion is a tribute as well to the 32 other dedicated authors and editors who took time from research of their own in order to finish this work. To D. Amadon, E.R. Blake, G.W. Cottrell, J. Davis, H.G. Deignan, J. Delacour, J. Dorst, R.A. Falla, J.C. Greenway, Jr., T.R. Howell, P.A. Johnsgard, C. Jouanin, M.P. Kahl, G.H. Lowery, Jr., E. Mayr, A.H. Miller, B.L. Monroe, Jr., R.E. Moreau, J.- L. Mougin, R.B. Payne, J.L, Peters, A.L. Rand, S.D. Ripley, F. Salomonsen, D.W. Snow, R.W. Storer, E. Stresemann, M.A. Traylor, Jr., C.H. Vaurie, G.E. Watson, C.M.N. White, and J.T. Zimmer, and in particular to Alison Pirie, who has worked so closely with me as an unheralded assistant, I can no other answer make but thanks. And thanks, and ever thanks. Twelfth Night. Act III, Scene 3. Raymond A. Paynter, Jr. 30 January 1987 digitaliseret af MBP, Navnegruppen 7 8 Peters Check List - Index - volume XVI INTRODUCTION This Comprehensive Index is a compilation of all indices in the Checklist series, with the exception of that from the first edition of Volume I. Misspellings, omissions, and other errors detected in the indices have been corrected, but not those from within the texts. A few synonyms that I know to have been overlooked are cited in the Addenda to this volume and are indexed here, but no consideration is given to names coined subsequent to the publication of the relevant volume. It is a tribute to the authors that not a single homonym has been found in the approximately 55,000 entries that constitute this index. In this, the final volume in a series that has been appearing at intervals for nearly six decades, it seems appropriate to take a brief overview of the project and to examine some of the tenets and conventions, as well as the problems, that have guided and confronted the authors and editors. From the outset this Check-list did not attempt to give complete synonymies, but rather picked up from the date of the last such compilation. For example, in early volumes only names synonymized since Sharpe’s Hand-list (1899-1909) were included; later in the series the suitable volume in Hellmayr’s Catalogue of Birds of the Americas (1924-1949) or in Hartert’s Die Vogel der paldarktischen Fauna (1903-1938) was taken as the starting point for new synomyns. In the beginning, bibliographic references to taxonomic revisions, or other major studies, were given under each genus. In time this was altered so that important works were listed only once under the family heading, and the bibliographies under the generic heading were expanded to include biological as well as taxonomic works. English vernacular names were tried in Volume IX, in an attempt to make the work more accessible to non-taxonomists. The selection of these names evoked so much criticism from those it was meant to help that the effort was abandoned. Over the course of the entire Check-list project, the authors and editors had to wrestle with two vexatious major problems that were the result of the rapidly advancing state of avian taxonomy. The first problem was that of the sequence in which the taxa, particularly at the familial level, were to be ordered. The second problem was digitaliseret af MBP, Navnegruppen 9 concerned with the hierarchical rank assigned to the higher taxa, again particularly at the familial level.