{"id":10027,"date":"2015-05-30T14:54:40","date_gmt":"2015-05-30T21:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/?p=10027"},"modified":"2018-06-23T07:48:14","modified_gmt":"2018-06-23T14:48:14","slug":"how-about-the-genus-pipilo-back-then","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/30\/how-about-the-genus-pipilo-back-then\/","title":{"rendered":"How About the Genus Pipilo … Back Then?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Green-tailed<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1896, Robert Ridgway proposed<\/a> to make of the green-tailed towhee<\/a><\/p>\n

the type of a new genus,\u00a0Oreospiza<\/span>, whose characters are intermediate between, or rather a combination of,\u00a0those of\u00a0Pipilo<\/span> and Zonotrichia<\/u>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sensible enough, given the bird’s wing structure<\/a>\u00a0and head pattern<\/a>, and the AOU adopted the new name<\/a> in the next year’s Supplement to the\u00a0Check-list.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Thereupon roared forth, in a manic mood, Elliott Coues<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Coues<\/a><\/p>\n

In a short and malignant\u00a0letter to the editor of the Auk<\/i>,\u00a0Coues confessed\u00a0himself\u00a0inclined to agree that the green-tailed was generically distinct from other towhees, but at the same time felt the need to point out that<\/p>\n

I could produce some manuscript, in my own handwriting, of date 1862, in which I took the bird entirely out of the genus\u00a0Pipilo<\/span>; though I never published that screed, chiefly because my mentor at that time, Professor Baird, was vexed at something I did with Bonaparte’s genus\u00a0Kieneria<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Resentment piles up atop 35-year-old resentment. But Coues’s real difficulty is the sequence of the towhees: the AOU has, in both editions of its list, “interjected forcibly” the green-tailed towhee<\/p>\n

in the middle of its supposed genus, with the black or green and white Towhees in front of it, and the brown Towhees behind it; with the interesting result, that\u00a0Oreospiza<\/span>, the heterogeneous element or unconformable factor in the case, now splits\u00a0Pipilo<\/span> apart!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Coues\u00a0is not to blame, though, as he hastens to add:<\/p>\n

I gladly leave this case to the tender grace of any one who will admit his responsibility for putting “Pipilo<\/span>” chlorurus<\/span> in that fix. I decline to assume any responsibility myself; the bird will be found in several of my works since 1872 in what I took to be its proper position.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, in all the successive\u00a0editions of the\u00a0Key,\u00a0<\/em>published in\u00a01872<\/a>, 1884<\/a>, 1887<\/a>, 1890<\/a>, and — posthumously — 1903<\/a>, the green-tailed is placed at the end of the towhees. Starting with the second edition, Coues included a note about the bird’s affinities: it is, he writes,<\/p>\n

of no intimate relations with any other; it has long been placed conventionally in\u00a0Pipilo<\/span>, for want of a better location; it is not easy to see how it differs in form from Zonotrichia<\/span> or\u00a0Embernagra<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I’ve kept track correctly, this short\u00a0letter efficiently\u00a0sideswipes\u00a0Robert Ridgway — for failing to acknowledge Coues’s intellectual priority — Spencer Baird — for disagreeing with Coues’s treatment of\u00a0Kieneria<\/em> — Charles Bonaparte — for raising\u00a0the genus in the first place — and the rest of the AOU’s checklist committee — for forcing the green-tailed into an unnatural position in the tally.<\/p>\n

Baird and Bonaparte were dead, and Ridgway, apparently declining to respond to Coues’s outburst, simply pointed out<\/a> that he had himself been pondering the distinctness of the green-tailed towhee<\/a> for some time.<\/p>\n

The AOU, however, was still restive. In 1915, Charles Richmond pointed out<\/a> that Ridgway’s\u00a0Oreospiza\u00a0<\/em>was pre-occupied, having already been used (and more appropriately, at that) by the specimen dealer G.T. Keitel for the snowfinches<\/a>. Richmond coined the new genus name\u00a0Oberholseria\u00a0<\/em>for the green-tailed towhee, and that name was used in the fourth edition<\/a> of the\u00a0Check-list. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

In 1947, on the determination that\u00a0Chlorura <\/em>was available and predated Richmond’s name — it had\u00a0first been published, as a subgenus name, for the towhee in 1862<\/a> — the twenty-second supplement assigned\u00a0the bird to yet another genus<\/a>, making it\u00a0Chlorura chlorura<\/em>, the green-tailed greentail, in the fifth edition of the\u00a0<\/a>Check-list<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

And it wasn’t over yet. Things came full circle in 1955, when Charles Sibley argued<\/a> cogently that the green-tailed towhee was best assigned to the same genus as the spotted and collared towhees — namely,\u00a0Pipilo<\/em>, the genus from which it\u00a0had been removed it in 1896.<\/p>\n

No response so far from Elliott Coues.<\/p>\n

\"Pipilo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1896, Robert Ridgway proposed to make of the green-tailed towhee the type of a new genus,\u00a0Oreospiza, whose characters are intermediate between, or rather a combination of,\u00a0those of\u00a0Pipilo and Zonotrichia. Sensible enough, given the bird’s wing structure\u00a0and head pattern, and the AOU adopted the new name in the next year’s Supplement to the\u00a0Check-list.\u00a0 Thereupon roared … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “How About the Genus Pipilo … Back Then?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[676,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10027"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10027"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10036,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10027\/revisions\/10036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}