34 
Records of the Australian Museum (2016) Vol. 68 
Citation of the first 1882 Nature paper with Ramsay 
as the author often occurs. The variants of spelling of 
Ptilinopus richardsii and Ptilinopus viridis lewisii are in the 
standard literature, largely through their use in Peters (1937). 
However, the earlier publication of the 1881 paper appears 
to have gone almost unnoticed, indeed it was overlooked in 
the same volume of Peters for Micropsitta finschii. 
The only significant change in the spelling of any name in 
the 1881 paper was that of Tephras olivaceus where it is given 
as Zosterops olivacens in the Nature article, presumably a 
typographical error. This change will be examined separately 
in a future paper. 
The name “ Halcyon salmonis ” in the second 1882 paper 
in Nature has not been used since for the taxon now known 
as Halcyon (or Todiramphus ) chloris solomonis. As such it 
is an unused senior synonym and should not be used. The 
type locality for this taxon was merely noted as the “Solomon 
Islands” in both Nature and the Proceedings. However, in a 
later paper Ramsay indicated that specimens were received 
from Alex Morton and John Stephens from Ugi and San 
Cristobal (Ramsay, 1882f). 
Ramsay intentionally sent his papers to Nature. In one 
of his diaries in the Mitchell Library is the note “Nov 30th 
1881. Read paper on two new species of Bds from Ugi. 
Halcyon salamonis, Rhipidura tenebrosa. Sent memo of the 
meeting to ‘Nature’ on 2nd Dec” (ML.MSS 2278 Add on 
544). In the issue of Nature in question, 9 February 1882, 
there are references to all the papers given at the relevant 
meeting of the Linnean Society of NSW. In a sense this 
was a forerunner to the later published Abstracts of the 
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 
(hereafter Abstracts). Partial sets of the Abstracts are found 
in both the Australian Museum Library and the Mitchell 
Library. The earliest numbers in these sets date from the 
meeting of 27 September 1882, the meeting following the 
fire that destroyed the Garden Palace in Sydney’s Domain 
on 22 September 1882. The Australian Museum lost its 
ethnological and technical collections in the fire (Strahan, 
1979) and may have lost earlier issues of the Abstracts. The 
Linnean Society of NSW also lost its Library, equipment and 
specimens in the fire (Strahan, 1979). Many later issues of 
the Abstracts , apart from surviving in original form in the 
Australian Museum and Mitchell Libraries, were reprinted 
in the German journal Zoologischer Anzeiger and the 
Melbourne-based journal Southern Science Record. There 
are additional earlier accounts in Nature for the meetings 
from June and July 1882, though there are no new names 
involved. It would be interesting to know if any published 
Abstracts exist for meetings of the Linnean Society of 
NSW from before 27 September 1882, but it is likely that 
Ramsay ceased sending papers to Nature following the 
commencement of the publication of the Abstracts which 
provided a more rapid publication of his names. 
Dispersal of the specimens 
Cockerell apparently delivered his specimens to Museum 
Victoria during January 1879. Most of these specimens have 
tags dated “Jan.23/79”. The specimens were all wrapped 
separately in wide strips of paper fastened as tubes with a 
pin. These strips were annotated by Cockerell and most of the 
Melbourne specimens were still unregistered and wrapped 
in the paper strips when examined in 1995. Nearly all the 
strips with Cockerell’s handwriting were removed from the 
specimens in the Australian Museum. However, at least one 
remains attached to the tag of a specimen of Dicaeum aeneum 
(AM 0.18696). Cockerell’s specimens from the Solomon 
Islands are fairly distinctive. They are cylindrical in shape 
and sometimes have a “waist” when the paper tube did not 
cover the entire bird. This cylindrical shape is common to 
Cockerell’s specimens in the Australian Museum, Museum 
Victoria and those in another major repository of Cockerell’s 
specimens at the Macleay Museum. 
The bird collection in the Macleay Museum of the 
University of Sydney consists of around 9500 specimens and 
largely dates from 1874 to 1888, the period in which William 
John Macleay was actively collecting and acquiring bird 
specimens (Stanbury & Holland, 1988; S. Norrington, pers. 
comm.). Despite many type specimens being transferred 
on permanent loan to the Australian Museum in 1969 
(Longmore, 1991), large numbers of type specimens and 
specimens of rare taxa still remain in the Macleay Museum 
(Fisher & Longmore, 1995; Fulton, 2001; Me Allan, 2006). 
Unfortunately most of the specimens in this collection lack 
original labels, largely through the curation of the collection 
by George Masters from 1874 to 1912. 
Nevertheless, all the specimens labelled “Solomon 
Islands” in this collection have the same cylindrical shape 
as the specimens in the Australian Museum and Museum 
Victoria. In 1929, J. J. Fletcher published a paper giving 
information on the sources of material found in the Macleay 
Museum where there is only one reference to birds coming 
from the Solomon Islands (Fletcher, 1929; Whittell, 1954). 
On page 267 it refers to donations to the Museum in 1879 
and notes “Mr Cockerell—part of his collection (mammals, 
birds, over 100 species, reptiles, fish and insects) from the 
Solomon Islands”. Stanbury (1969) suspected that some 
of these specimens were types, but gave no details of why 
he thought this was so and many were not included in the 
later transfer of types to the Australian Museum. Given that 
Ramsay was closely associated with Macleay (Strahan, 
1979), it is not surprising that part of Cockerell’s collection 
ended up in Macleay’s Museum. 
In his letter to McCoy of 16 January 1979, Ramsay wrote 
that he had seen the entire collection made by Cockerell 
before describing the new taxa. Consequently many of the 
types from the first paper on Cockerell’s collection are in 
both Museum Victoria and the Macleay Museum. However, 
only some of the types from Ramsay’s later publications 
that used specimens from Cockerell’s collection can be said 
to be in these other museums. Even so, it is evident from 
occasional references in his papers, that Ramsay regularly 
visited the Macleay Museum (e.g., see the Chalcophaps 
mortoni account in Ramsay, 1882f). Furthermore, Ramsay 
visited Melbourne in 1880 (Strahan, 1979), and again in 
January 1881, when he helped McCoy identify some New 
Guinea bird specimens (letter from McCoy to Ramsay, 
Mitchell Library ZML.MSS 2169; also Ramsay diaries, 
Mitchell Library ML.MSS 2278 Add on 544). 
Ramsay organized an exchange of several specimens 
with the Queensland Museum that finally took place in June 
1883 when Ramsay was absent in Europe. Whether done 
intentionally or unintentionally, this exchange included a 
type specimen (Ingram, 1987). Although Cockerell disposed 
of most of his specimens within Australia, he also sold two 
type specimens to The Natural History Museum in London. 
These were registered into the collection in January 1884 
(Warren & Harrison, 1971). 
