92 NOVITATES ZOOLOOICAB XXIII. 1916. 



WHAT IS THE CORRECT NAME OE THE 

 "LONG-TOED STINT"? 



By ERNST HARTERT, Ph.D. 



THIS bird has been generally known under the name of Tringa or Actodromas 

 subminuta, but some authors called it Tringa damacensis, and the latter 

 name has been adopted by Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 553, in the 

 combination " Limonites damacensis," in the Check-List of N. Amer. B., 3rd Ed., 

 p. 115, and by Mathews, B. Austr. iii. p. 251, as Pisobia damacensis. By those 

 who adopted the latter specific name few comments have been made on the 

 correctness of this name. Stejneger, Res. Orn. Expl. Commander Is., and Kamt- 

 chatka {Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. no. 29) p. 116, merely says : " Having heard of no 

 doubt concerning the identification of Hors field's damacensis with Middendorff's 

 subminuta, I adopt it without further comment." Mathews, t.c. p. 253, says : 

 " Long known by Middendorff's name of subminuta, it was originally described by 

 Horsfield, and the Horsfieldiau name was used by ornithologists having access to 

 the British Museum, where the type is preserved. The description given by 

 Horsfield is, of course, quite inadequate to identify the species, no mention being 

 made of the long toes and no measurements given." A name, however, is not 

 correct because nobody has expressed any doubt about its identification, nor merely 

 because a type is supposed to exist. The diagnosis must be correct, and the 

 supposed type must be the real type. These two essential questions appear to have 

 been considered only by Blanfonl. In Fauna Brit. Ind., Birds iv. p. 274, he 

 says : " Dr. kSharpe has examined the two type-specimens of Horsfield's Totanus 

 damacensis, and finds that one belongs to Tringa ruficollis and one to T. subminuta ; 

 but the words in Horsfield's brief description, ' rachidibus primorum albis' (shafts 

 of the primaries white), is applicable to T. ruficollis only." 



With regard to the supposed type : In Horsfield's time authors did not at 

 once mark the specimen or one of the specimens from which the original description 

 was taken as the type, as is now done by nearly all conscientious ornithologists. 

 In nearly all cases such specimens were afterwards marked as the types, and it 

 is therefore obvious, that in a case where two specimens, belonging to different 

 species, are marked as types, neither of them can serve to prove the meaning of 

 the name. 



There remains the diagnosis. We should certainly have liked Horsfield's 

 descriptions to be better, more accurate, more detailed. Mr. Mathews has in several 

 places in his work on the Birds of Australia commented on their insufficiency, 

 but they are really often much better than one is apt to believe at a first glance, 

 if they are carefully read and properly understood. 



The sentence quoted as essential by Blanford is by no means all. There is 

 no doubt it was meant to say " shafts of the primaries white." Horsfield called the 

 primaries " remiges primores " and not " remiges primariae," as we do now ; his 

 meaning is therefore absolutely clear. Besides, there are other reasons why 

 I consider that the description can only refer to Erolia ruficollis : Horsfield 

 says " subtus albus " and " supra pallide cinereo-fuscus." Now Erolia ruficollis, 



