^ 1908 ^] Allen, Columbina vs. Chcemepelia. 303 



latter, and to refer "C. minuta Temm. nee Linn" to Columbina 

 griseola Spix, — a wholly erroneous proceeding, by which he sup- 

 planted the well-founded minuta Linn, by a wholly new griseola 

 Bonap. (nee Spix); for griseola Sp\x= passerina Linn., and griseola 

 Bonap. = minuta Linn. Yet Bonaparte was followed in this false step 

 by most later ornithologists, down to and including both Salvadori 

 (1893) and Sharpe (1899). Berlepsch, however, in 1887 (Joum. 

 f. Om., 1887, 34), correctly identified Columbina griseola Spix with 

 Columba passerina Linn., and this identification was emphatically 

 confirmed by HellmajT (Re^'ision der Spix'schen Tj'pen brasilian- 

 ischer Vogel *) in 1906, on the basis of an examination of Spix's 

 original t^'pe of griseola, which proves to have been a young female 

 of passerina, as can be readily seen by comparing such a specimen 

 with Spix's diagnosis and plate; passerina being here taken in the 

 broad sense in which it was recognized by all authors before the 

 modem practice of recognizing slight geographic forms came into 

 vogue. Indeed, it is only necessary to compare young or female 

 examples of both passerina and minuta with SpLx's figure and de- 

 scription to become convinced that Spix's griseola cannot be minuta. 

 The wonder is, first, how Bonaparte could have made such a palpable 

 error, and, secondly, that it could have been so long and so generally 

 perpetuated. Linnaeus, as already said, based his Columba minuta, 

 fortimately, exclusively on Brisson (I. c), and Brisson so well de- 

 scribed the bird that its identity is beyond question; for the two 

 species, minuta and passerina, are widely different at all ages. Bona- 

 parte's griseola is also fully described, and is obviously the minuta 

 of Linnseus, and not, as he mistakenly assumed it to be, the griseola 

 of Spix. The only authors who have apparently looked up the 

 matter for themselves, and have thus discovered the error, are Ber- 

 lepsch and Hellmayr, as already stated. The case is simply one of 

 the many mstances where one author has blindly followed another, 

 like a flock of sheep following their leader, and not a case "where 

 doctors disagree," since griseola of Spix is perfectly determinable. 



It is further worthy of note that Bonaparte placed minuta Linn, 

 in his section "pectore nigro undulato"oi his genus Chamcepelia, and 

 minuta Temm. & Knip in his section "pectore immaculato" of the 

 same genus, notwithstanding that Brisson's description (the sole 



1 Abhandl. d. II Kl. d. K. Akad. d. Wiss., XXII, Abt. iii, 697. 



