Aerial diving display, with calling, by Black Falcon Falco subniger D.J. Whelan 24 Manning Boulevard, Darley VIC 3440, Australia Email: [email protected]

Australian Field Ornithology 2013, 30, 196–202

The likely collector and an approximate type-locality of the Chestnut-breasted Whiteface Aphelocephala pectoralis (Gould, 1871)

Andrew B. Black

South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000, Australia Email: [email protected]

Summary. It is probable that the holotype of the Chestnut-breasted Whiteface Aphelocephala pectoralis was obtained by Frank Gibson, a rural worker (‘gentleman shepherd’) and naturalist, who collected from several localities in and beyond the Flinders Ranges, including Edeowie, ~150 km north of Port Augusta, South Australia. The type-locality is less certain, but is likely to be north of Edeowie and might therefore be close to Lyndhurst where the species can be found today.

Introduction The type-locality, Port Augusta, South Australia, given for the Chestnut-breasted Whiteface Aphelocephala pectoralis has long been questioned, as little suitable habitat is present in the vicinity (Ragless 1969; Pedler 1992) and the name of the collector is unknown. Ragless (1969) considered that F.W. Andrews might have been responsible during his travels to the Gawler Ranges, and nominated the Pimba–Woomera area as the likely locality. Andrews collected on many occasions in the Gawler Ranges, but only once before A. pectoralis was described (Gould 1871), and no specimen of the genus was among the nine named species received from that trip by the South Australian Museum, Adelaide (SAMA) in January 1871 (archival document ‘donations 1869–1872’; AB personal data). Andrews did not collect in the Pimba–Woomera area (SAMA records); Pedler (1992, p. 80) considered the habitat there to be less suitable than at some places closer to Port Augusta and he also found several areas of suitable habitat ‘near the western flanks of the Flinders Ranges between Port Augusta and Lyndhurst’. John Gould described and figured the new species of ‘Xerophila’ (whiteface) from a single specimen sent from SAMA in March 1871 by the Museum Curator, Frederick G. Waterhouse (Gould 1871, 1875; Sutton 1929). A search of SAMA archival material was undertaken for any reference to the new Xerophila and its possible locality and collector (see list of documents after references).

Results In the Curator’s records are listed a number of specimens forwarded to Gould through Samuel White in July 1869, and these were acknowledged by Gould when received in January 1870 (Sutton 1929). The next consignment was taken for Gould’s assessment in March 1871 by George French Angas and included ‘1 Xerophila n sp. Port Augusta’. In a letter of August 1871, Gould acknowledged the new species and referred to its forthcoming description (Sutton 1929). SAMA Chestnut-breasted Whiteface: Likely collector and type-locality 197 records relating to the new Xerophila give its locality only as Port Augusta or near Port Augusta, but at no time preceding or including the period July 1869 to March 1871 is there any reference to its acquisition or to that of any specimen from Port Augusta. On the other hand, evidence for the identification of its collector is provided in a list of South Australian published in a book chapter prepared for the Philadelphia Centenary Exhibition of 1876 (Waterhouse 1876). Included in it are two Xerophila (whiteface) species: the ‘White-faced Xerophila Xerophila leucopsis’ () and ‘Gibson’s Xerophila Xerophila pectoralis’ (Chestnut-breasted Whiteface). In the Curator’s records are entries showing that Frank Gibson supplied birds and other natural-history specimens to SAMA: a Thorny Devil Moloch horridus from Port Augusta in February 1865; birds from Woolundunga (32°33′S, 137°56′E) in January and May 1868; birds from Marrachowie [Marachowie (31°59′S, 138°03′E)] in January 1869; birds from Ediowie [Edeowie (31°27′S, 138°27′E)] in July and August 1869; and fossil shells from an unidentified locality in the ‘Far North’ in January 1870. The former localities of Woolundunga and Marachowie are ~50 km east and 75 km north-east, respectively, of Port Augusta, and Edeowie Homestead and its associated former settlement are ~150 km north-north-east, on the western flank of the Flinders Ranges. Apart from Port Augusta, Waterhouse used the term ‘Far North’ consistently in relation to all the above localities from which Gibson sent specimens; these specimens included many birds typical of the western fringes of the central and northern Flinders Ranges, as well as noteworthy records such as Scarlet-chested Parrot Neophema splendida and Grey Falcon Falco hypoleucos (Table 1).

Discussion Despite the lack of direct confirmation, it is scarcely plausible that Waterhouse named the new species Gibson’s Xerophila after anyone but its collector. Further support is provided by SAMA records. There are four references to Gibson in the South Australian Institute’s (October to September) Annual Reports. In 1864–1865 he was listed as a donor, living in North Adelaide (Waterhouse 1865); in 1867–1868 it was stated that ‘Mr Frank Gibson, resident in the Far North, who takes a kind interest in the Museum, has supplied several of the newly discovered birds peculiar to that locality’ (Waterhouse 1868, p. 6); in 1868–1869 it was recorded that ‘several birds, hitherto but little known, peculiar to the Far North, have been supplied by Mr Frank Gibson of Ediowie, who takes a warm interest in this Museum’ (Waterhouse 1869, p. 5); finally, in 1869–1870 there is reference to the receipt of ‘skins of rare species of birds, collected in the Far North by the late Mr Frank Gibson’ (Waterhouse 1870, p. 6). No accessed document shows which rare bird specimens Gibson sent between the last two reports although he continued to collect during that period (see below). Sources of information concerning specimens received by the Curator show inconsistencies including omissions, and the lists of birds received from Gibson (Table 1) are certainly incomplete. A tantalising example is in the list from July 1869 which itemised ‘one to come’. The new Xerophila seems likely to have been sent in 1869 or 1870, rather than earlier, from Edeowie or from another locality ‘in the Far North’. In August 1869, Gibson had forwarded another interesting specimen from Edeowie, one 198 Australian Field Ornithology A.B. Black

Table 1. Bird species received as specimens from Frank Gibson from Woolundunga (W) and Marachowie (M), and from Edeowie (E), named as recorded in SAMA documents. English names for each inferred species (Christidis & Boles 2008) are provided in square brackets. Neither list is necessarily complete.

No. of individuals Species received W & M E Podiceps gularis [Australasian Grebe] 1 Geopelia cuneata [Diamond Dove] 2 Ieracidea berigora [Brown Falcon] 3 Falco hyperleucus [Grey Falcon] 4 Porzana palustris [Baillon’s Crake] 1 Hyaticula nigrifrons [Black-fronted Dotterel] 2 Erythrogonys cinctus [Red-kneed Dotterel] 5 Euphema splendida [Scarlet-chested Parrot] 1 1 Cuculus (or Chalcis) osculans [Black-eared Cuckoo] 1 2 Chriococcyx lucidus [Shining Bronze-Cuckoo] 1 1 Halcyon pyrrhopygia [Red-backed Kingfisher] 4 Malurus Callainus (or melanotus) [Splendid Fairy-wren] 3 Malurus leucopterus [White-winged Fairy-wren] 5 Malurus Lamberti [Variegated Fairy-wren] 1 Amytis texilis [Thick-billed Grasswren] 1 Calamanthus campestris [Rufous Fieldwren] 1 Pardalotus [pardalote species] 1 Melicophila picata [Pied Honeyeater] 5 Ptilotis sonorus [Singing Honeyeater] 3 Ptilotis ornata [Yellow-plumed Honeyeater] 2 Ptilotis plumulus [Grey-fronted Honeyeater] 1 Ptilotis ? [honeyeater species] 1 Glyciphila albifrons [White-fronted Honeyeater] 3 Glyciphila qy sp- [honeyeater query species] 1 Pomatorhinus ruficeps [Chestnut-crowned Babbler] 3 Ciclosoma cinnamoneum [Cinnamon Quail-thrush] 1 10 Sittella pileata [Varied Sittella] 1 Graucalus melanops [Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike] 2 Campephaga humeralis [White-winged Triller] 1 Pachycephala Gilberti [Gilbert’s Whistler] 1 Pachycephala pectoralis [Golden Whistler] 2 Colluricincla rufiventris [Grey Shrike-thrush] 2 Chestnut-breasted Whiteface: Likely collector and type-locality 199

Table 1. continued

No. of individuals Species received W & M E Orioca cristata [Crested Bellbird] 3 Artamus melanops [Black-faced Woodswallow] 21 Artamus minor [Little Woodswallow] 1 Cracticus destructor [Grey Butcherbird] 1 Petroica bicolor [Hooded Robin] 2 Cincloramphus rufescens [Rufous Songlark] 2 Dicaeum [Mistletoebird] 6

‘Amytis texilis’ (sic = Amytornis modestus raglessi Thick-billed Grasswren). That subspecies, otherwise not reported until 1920 (Parsons 1921), and the Chestnut- breasted Whiteface are both present residents of the Leigh Creek–Lyndhurst area ~100 km north of Edeowie (Ragless 1969; Pedler 1992; Black 2011; Black et al. 2011) but neither has otherwise been reported from the near neighbourhood of Edeowie itself. Little is known of Frank Gibson but, in a letter to Waterhouse in July 1868 (Sutton 1929, p. 108), Gould observed ‘that you are in correspondence with a Gentleman Shepherd in the far north and that he has sent you some specimens of Artamus melanops’ (i.e. Black-faced Woodswallows A. cinereus), which Gould then believed to be rare. Gibson’s January 1868 collection had included four A. melanops. Gould asked if Waterhouse ‘could spare me one or more’, and four were forwarded to him in October of that year, with little doubt from the same ‘gentleman shepherd’. Although no specimen of the species is included in the only list of specimens from Gibson in that period (May 1868), the January 1869 list named 12 skins of A. melanops, this figure being amended later to 21, perhaps to account for specimens sent earlier but not listed at the time. Evidently Waterhouse believed Gibson was a pastoral worker who was engaged on several properties over those two years. Why the term ‘gentleman’ was used is unclear, but the South Australian Register of 18 August 1869 (p. 2) printed an articulate and amusing piece entitled ‘The special convict and St. Patrick’s curse’ by Frank Gibson of Ediowie (Gibson 1869), showing that he was educated and literate as well as discriminating in collecting and skilful in the preparation of specimens. That article referred to him travelling alone by horse ‘some nine or ten years ago to Sydney from the south-western portion of New South Wales’. The resources of the State Library of South Australia, the Port Augusta Library, and the library of Genealogy South Australia, together with published and online historical sources for the region and newspaper items accessed through Trove (National Library of Australia), have been explored at length, but no record of Frank Gibson’s birth, arrival, marriage or death has been located in New South 200 Australian Field Ornithology A.B. Black

Wales, Western Australia, Victoria or South Australia. There are newspaper reports referring to action taken by Francis Gibson at Port Augusta to recover expenses due to him ‘on account of working a mineral claim at Woolundunga’ since September 1866 (Anon. 1866, 1867), and it is probable that Francis Gibson of Woolundunga in 1866 and Frank Gibson of Woolundunga in 1868 were one and the same. No record has been found of Gibson sending bird specimens to the Australian Museum, Sydney, or Museum Victoria, Melbourne (Patricia Egan, Jaynia Sladek and Wayne Longmore pers. comm.), but Whittell (1954) noted that several skins of the Painted Finch Emblema pictum in the British Museum had been collected by one F. Gibson. Those specimens were not noted by Gould (1865) but were listed by Sharpe (1890, pp. 295–296): one evidently directly from F. Gibson and three indirectly as part of the Gould Collection (F. Gibson). Sharpe included details of bill colour supplied by Gibson himself but, somewhat misleadingly, indicated that the specimens had come from the interior of Northern Australia. That error is corrected by reference to Datta (1997), who included among manuscripts in the Gould Australian Collection in the British Museum (p. 398), ‘Notes on Emblema picta F. Gibson. Ediwoii [sic]. South Australia 1869’. The species was said to have been observed at Port Augusta [sic] and the Flinders Ranges during 1868 and 1869, and Gibson had sent the skins and field notes to cover a dearth of information on the species that he had detected from reading ‘Gould’s Manual’, presumably the Handbook (Gould 1865), which Waterhouse was said to have sent him. Although it is possible that Gibson sent this material directly to the British Museum and to Gould, it is far more likely that he sent it to Waterhouse who then forwarded it to appropriate authorities in London (P. Horton pers. comm.; I. McAllan pers. comm.). If this is the case, it is likely that the term ‘Far North’ would have been used and this would account for Sharpe’s mistaken reference to the interior of Northern Australia. The last located reference to the life of Frank Gibson was the following: ‘BLINMAN [then a mining town ~75 km north-east of Edeowie], April 4. Mr. F. Gibson, the Naturalist, is here, and has forwarded by this mail a specimen of a lizard of a kind hitherto nearly unknown’ (Anon. 1870). No documentation has been identified of receipt of that lizard at the SAMA but this was in the period between the Annual Reports of 1868–1869 and 1869–1870 when, as already noted, the names of bird specimens reported to have been sent by Gibson were not recorded. Additional evidence of Gibson’s collecting localities is provided by the ‘two fossil shells sent from the Far North: 1 Mytilus and 1 Cyprina’ in January 1870. Today, according to SAMA palaeontologist Ben McHenry (pers. comm.), these are known as Eyrena (a mussel) and Cyrenopsis (a cockle), respectively, and they would undoubtedly have come from the Cretaceous Shale, a formation outcropping through much of the Lake Eyre Basin. Importantly, they would not have been collected from within the Flinders Ranges, such as at Edeowie or Blinman, but somewhere on the plains between the ranges and Lake Eyre. If Gibson’s Xerophila was collected in the period between September 1869 and mid 1870, after which its collector vanished from history, it might well have been from some distance north of Edeowie, the last identified locality from which he sent specimens to SAMA, and perhaps close to the Leigh Creek–Lyndhurst area where it still occurs. Chestnut-breasted Whiteface: Likely collector and type-locality 201

Port Augusta at the head of Spencer Gulf was then the largest town in the north of the colony of South Australia and was and still is the point of access to almost all northern regions. In addition, there was a regular steamship service between Port Augusta and Port Adelaide. The use of the term ‘Far North’ by Waterhouse and others implied the dry country beyond agricultural settlement or beyond Port Augusta. Mail and parcels from the small townships, pastoral properties and mining communities in the north were sent by mail coach either to a rail head at Kapunda or to Port Augusta for shipment to Adelaide (R.M. Gibbs pers. comm.); the former route involved >250 km further by coach. Port Augusta was therefore very likely the place through which Gibson’s specimens were dispatched to SAMA. Frank Gibson provided some remarkable early records from the Flinders Ranges. Apart from evidence provided here that he obtained the holotype of the Chestnut- breasted Whiteface (Gibson’s Xerophila), he sent specimens representing the first records of the Thick-billed Grasswren, Chestnut-crowned Babbler Pomatostomus ruficeps, Little Woodswallow Artamus minor and Painted Finch for the region. The last two are noteworthy because they precede other reports from such southerly latitudes in South Australia by almost a century (Condon 1968).

Acknowledgements I am grateful to editor James Fitzsimons and to reviewers Lynn Pedler and Ian McAllan for many helpful suggestions to expand and clarify sections of the submitted manuscript. I thank Ron Gibbs for historical details, Philippa Horton for providing the references to Gibson by Whittell and Sharpe and, with John Day of Genealogy South Australia, for finding several reports about him, including the last from Blinman, and Ian McAllan for referring me to the informative Gibson manuscript included in Datta’s publication. These additional sources of information prompted my further scrutiny of all available evidence. I am indebted finally to Ben McHenry for providing the likely provenance of Gibson’s fossil specimens. Information about this accomplished early collector is still sought, and I will be grateful to any reader who can assist me in this.

References Anon. (1866). Local Court – Port Augusta. Friday September 28. South Australian Weekly Chronicle 6 October 1866, 7. Anon. (1867). Local Courts – Adelaide. Wednesday February 6. South Australian Register 7 February 1867, 3. Anon. (1870). From our country correspondents. South Australian Chronicle and Weekly Mail 9 April 1870, 7. Black, A. (2011). Subspecies of the Thick-billed Grasswren Amytornis modestus (Aves- Maluridae). Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 135, 26–38. Black, A., Carpenter, G. & Pedler, L. (2011). Distribution and habitats of the Thick-billed Grasswren Amytornis modestus and comparison with the Western Grasswren Amytornis textilis myall in South Australia. South Australian Ornithologist 37, 60–80. Christidis, L. & Boles, W. (2008). Systematics and of Australian Birds. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne. Condon, H.T. (1968). A Handlist of the Birds of South Australia. South Australian Ornithological Association, E.J. McAllister & Co. Pty. Ltd., Adelaide. Datta, A. (1997). John Gould in Australia: Letters and Drawings. Trustees of the Natural History Museum, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. 202 Australian Field Ornithology A.B. Black

Gibson, F. (1869). The special convict and St. Patrick’s curse. South Australian Register 18 August 1869, 2. Gould, J. (1865). Handbook to the Birds of Australia. Author, London. Gould, J. (1871). Descriptions of two new species pertaining to the avifauna of Australia. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 8, 192–193. Gould, J. (1875). The Birds of New Guinea and the Adjacent Papuan Islands. Part 1. Author, London. Parsons, F.E. (1921). Notes on a motor trip to western Queensland. South Australian Ornithologist 6, 12–23. Pedler, L. (1992). Review of the status and distribution of the Chestnut-breasted Whiteface Aphelocephala pectoralis. South Australian Ornithologist 31, 79–93. Ragless, G.B. (1969). Nest and eggs of the Chestnut-breasted Whiteface. South Australian Ornithologist 25, 98–99. Sharpe, R.B. (1890). Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum, Vol. 13. Trustees of the British Museum, London. Sutton, J. (1929). Letters of John Gould to F. G. Waterhouse. South Australian Ornithologist 10, 104–115. Waterhouse, F.G. (1865). Report of the Curator. South Australian Institute Annual Report 1864–5, 5–6. Waterhouse, F.G. (1868). Report of the Curator. South Australian Institute Annual Report 1867–8, 5–6. Waterhouse, F.G. (1869). Report of the Curator. South Australian Institute Annual Report 1868–9, 5–6. Waterhouse, F.G. (1870). Report of the Curator. South Australian Institute Annual Report 1869–70, 5–6. Waterhouse, F.G. (1876). Birds. In: Harcus, W. (Ed.). South Australia: Its History, Resources and Productions, pp. 286–296. W. Cox Government Printer, Adelaide. Whittell, H.M. (1954). The Literature of Australian Birds: A History and a Bibliography of Australian Ornithology. Paterson, Brokensha, Perth.

Archival documents examined Workbooks retained in SAMA 1867–1869 Diary. 1869–1872 Donations.

Documents in South Australian State Records GRG 19-168 Reports by the Museum Curator 1863–1882. GRG 19-355 Minutes of meetings of the South Australian Institute Board 1856–1885.

Received 31 January 2013

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