32 
Records of the Australian Museum (2016) Vol. 68 
of the crew were said to have been poisoned by “natives” 
and yet according to the newspaper account, Brodie was 
apparently on good terms with them. 
Methods 
Relevant specimens of the taxa described by Ramsay were 
examined in the following Australian museums over several 
years: Australian Museum, Sydney (AM); Macleay Museum 
(University of Sydney), Sydney (MM); and Museum 
Victoria, Melbourne (NMV). The following museums in 
Italy were visited during August-September 1994: Museo 
Civico di StoriaNaturale, Milano (MSNM); Museo Civico di 
Storia natural “G. Doria”, Genova (MSNG) and the Museo di 
Zoologia dell’Universita di Torino (MZUT, specimens now 
housed in the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturale, MRSN). 
Details of specimens in the Queensland Museum, Brisbane 
(QM) and the Bird Section of The Natural History Museum 
Tring, United Kingdom (BMNH) were inferred from Ingram 
(1987), Longmore (1991) and Warren & Harrison (1971), and 
through correspondence with staff at these museums. 
Where possible, the specimens were examined to see if 
the plumages and morphology confonned to the descriptions 
given by Ramsay. Specimen labels registers and relevant 
correspondence held at these institutions were examined. 
The extensive files of Ramsay’s correspondence and diaries 
held in the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney, 
were also consulted. 
Taxonomic nomenclature. The nomenclature generally 
follows Dickinson & Remsen (2013) and Dickinson & 
Christidis (2014). Issues of nomenclature arising from these 
specimens and Ramsay’s descriptions and publications are 
discussed below. 
Results 
Ramsay’s acquisition of the specimens 
Cockerell evidently met Ramsay soon after the arrival of the 
Ariel in Sydney in early 1879, though the specimens were 
not acquired by Ramsay on their first meeting. On 8 January 
Cockerell wrote to Ramsay, 
“I would wish if it were convenient to you for you to 
go on board the Ariel tomorrow morning and inspect 
the plants. With regard to the birds etc, I give you full 
power to act for me but I wish to hold my own portion 
of these in preference to the coin as I have already told 
you” (letter in Ramsay papers, Mitchell Library, State 
Library ofNSW, ML.MSS. 1589/3). 
Thus the entire collection was examined by Ramsay within 
a few days of Cockerell’s arrival. As with most biologists 
of the latter half of the nineteenth century, Ramsay rarely 
designated type specimens in his descriptions. Consequently 
all the specimens in Cockerell’s collection that were taxa 
named by Ramsay in his initial paper on the collection are 
available as types. 
Ramsay may have helped Cockerell with the sale of the 
collection. Cockerell’s collection went to Museum Victoria 
after having first passed through Ramsay’s hands, as 
confirmed by letters in the archives of the Museum Victoria 
ornithology department (examined in 1995). On 14 January 
1879, Ramsay sent a telegraph to Professor Frederick 
McCoy, the first curator of Museum Victoria: 
“Cockerell offers splendid collection at five shilling 
each from Solomon Islands [:] Shall I send you a set 
pair of each species cheap [?] 
Two days later, on 16 January, Ramsay again wrote to McCoy: 
“I have told Cockerell that I would select a set of 
his birds &c for you but he says he is going down 
to Melbourne himself and will show you all his 
collections [.] he has some good things among them. 
“I do not find as many new things among Cockerell’s 
birds as I expected—but still there are some, these I 
have described and named and send you a list of them 
in case we should both be naming the same species— 
which would be very undesirable and only burden 
science with useless synonyms. 
“The following are the birds which I have described 
as New —in our Linn. Soc. Proceed. 
Myzomela per sonata sp. nov. 
Monarcha castanea 
Rhipidura cockerelli 
,, erebi 
Monarcha nigrogularis 
Ptilopus alexandrce 
Centropus alboviolacea ,, 
Graucalus assimilis 
Myiagraalbicans 
Publication and nomenclatural issues 
Ramsay described several species at a meeting of the 
Linnean Society of New South Wales on 29 January 1879 
(Ramsay, 1879b). Although Ramsay’s letter of 16 January 
1879 suggests that he had already decided the names, those 
published in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New 
South Wales (hereafter Proceedings ) were almost entirely 
different (Ramsay, 1879b). The only name described at the 
meeting that is directly analogous is Sauloprocta cockerelli , 
for Rhipidura cockerelli. 
A further problem arises with Ramsay’s description 
of Cockerell’s collections in the earlier publication of a 
summary paper in Nature (Ramsay, 1879a). The paper in the 
Proceedings was published on 16 June 1879 (see Fletcher, 
1896 for publication dates of the Proceedings) while the 
paper in Nature dates from 5 June 1879. Again there were 
differences between the two sets of names. Longmore 
(1991) outlined these differences and once again, apart from 
the description of Sauloprocta cockerellii (vs. Rhipidura 
cockerelli ), none of the names is similar to those used in 
Ramsay’s letter to McCoy (Table 1). 
Warren & Harrison (1971) suggested that the names 
in Nature were nomina nuda , i.e. not valid descriptions. 
However, the descriptions, although rudimentary, are valid, 
and were recognized as such by, amongst others, Mathews 
(1930), Salomonsen (1967), Schodde (1977), Watson et al. 
(1986) and Longmore (1991). Furthermore, several of the 
names found only in the Nature paper are used in standard 
works; for example Monarcha barbatus and Myzomela 
melanocephala were both used in Mayr (1945a), Sibley 
& Monroe (1990), Dickinson (2003), Dutson (2011) and 
Dickinson & Christidis (2014), the latter two publications 
listing M barbatus as Symposiarchus barbatus. 
