McAllan: Ramsay’s Solomon Islands bird types 
41 
Museum Victoria. Four syntypes: B. 19545, B. 19546, 
B. 19547, B. 19548. These specimens have the following 
details on the strip wrapping: B. 19545, Solomon Isl., No/ 
78, female; B. 19546, Solomon Isl., Oct 77 [the second 7 
has been crossed out], female, Gaudal [= Guadalcanal]; 
B. 19547, Guadalcana [= Guadalcanal], Solomon Isl., Oct 
77 [the second 7 has been crossed out and replaced with an 
8], male; B. 19548, Solomon Isl., Oct/79/ male. All four are 
labelled on another tag: “Cockerell’s Solomon Isds Coll.; 
Jan.23/79”. 
Macleay Museum. Four syntypes: B.7194, B.7915, B.7196, 
B7197. All four specimens were labelled by Masters 
“Monarcha castaneiventris Verr. Solomon Is.” and are of 
typical Cockerell make. These specimens were overlooked 
as types by Stanbury (1969). 
[Calornis solomonensis Ramsay, 1879, Nature 20: 125 ] 
[= ApJonis cantoroides (Gray, 1862)] 
Longmore (1991) noted a type of this taxon in the Australian 
Museum. However, the specimen so designated, A.3862, is an 
immature bird with black streaking on a white undersurface. 
Ramsay’s original description noted that solomonensis was “a 
uniform bright steel green” which strongly suggests that an 
adult bird was used in the description. No such bird is found 
in the known surviving Cockerell material. Ramsay did not 
describe this taxon in his first 1879 Proceedings paper, though 
he listed Calornis cantoroides and noted both adult male and 
“female” [sic = immature] birds. 
In summary, type specimens collected by Cockerell and 
named by Ramsay were dispersed to six museums, with 
significant numbers being in the Australian Museum, Museum 
Victoria and the Macleay Museum as shown in Table 3. 
Table 3. Numbers of specimens of Ramsay’s types collected by Cockerell in different museums.* = valid taxa. AM, Australian 
Museum; NMV, Museum Victoria; MM, Macleay Museum, the University of Sydney; QM, Queensland Museum; BMNH, 
The Natural History Museum, Tring, UK; MSNM, Museo Civico di StoriaNaturale, Milano, Italy. Figures in square brackets 
are missing specimens. Specimens of Myiagra brodiei in the Macleay Museum are distinguished from those of M. barbata 
in the listings but not the totals. 
Ramsay’s names for the taxa 
AM 
NMV 
MM 
QM 
BMNH 
MSNM 
Total 
Macropygia rufocastanea 
1 
— 
— 
— 
— 
— 
1 
* Ptilopus lewisii 
1 [1] 
— 
1 
— 
— 
— 
2 [1] 
* Bazagurneyi 
1 
— 
1 
— 
— 
— 
2 
* Asturpulchellus 
1 
— 
— 
— 
— 
— 
1 
* Cinnyris melanocephalus 
5 
3 
2 
— 
— 
— 
10 
* Graucalus pusillus 
2 
— 
— 
— 
— 
— 
2 
* Graucalus elegans 
3 [1] 
4 
3 
— 
— 
1 
11+[1] 
* Pseudorectes cinnamomeum 
2 
1 
— 
— 
— 
— 
3 
* Sauloprocta cockerellii 
3 
3 
2 
— 
— 
— 
8 
* Rhipidura rubrofrontata 
1 
2 
1 
— 
1 
— 
5 
* Myiagra ferrocyanea 
4 
5 
4 
1 
1 
— 
15 
Myiagra pallida 
4 
4 
2 
— 
1 
— 
11 
* Monarcha barbata (M. brodiei) 
5 
— 
1(2) 
— 
— 
— 
7 
Monarcha rufocastanea 
7 [1] 
4 
4 
— 
— 
— 
15 [1] 
Calornis solomonensis 
1? 
— 
— 
— 
— 
— 
1? 
Total 
40 [3]+l? 
26 
22 
1 
3 
1 
93 [3]+l? 
