Reinforcingthe

Foundations Filling in the Bibliographical Gaps in the

Historical Legacy

By Edward C DickinsonOctober 2011

OVERVIEW

• What are the foundations in ornithology?

OVERVIEW

• What are the foundations in ornithology?

• What are the major gaps?

OVERVIEW

• What are the foundations in ornithology?

• What are the major gaps?

• Have we actively sought to fill the gaps?

OVERVIEW

• What are the foundations in ornithology?

• What are the major gaps?

• Have we actively sought to fill the gaps?

• What have we done to fill them?

OVERVIEW

• What are the foundations in ornithology?

• What are the major gaps?

• Have we actively sought to fill the gaps?

• What have we done to fill them?

• How substantial a problem do we still have?

What are the foundationsin ornithology?

The Foundations in Ornithology

Documentation of ornithology

• Our knowledge of numbers of species of birds achieved what was considered to have reached a high level of completeness by the mid 20th century.

• Three very outstanding works document much of what we know but each suffers from a drawback.

• Nonetheless by 1960 or so we had much of a strong if not solid and comparable foundation.

What are the major gaps?

Quantitative gaps

• We generally presume near total completeness in our awareness of new names for birds prior to 1851

• I believe that there have been relatively few failures to record new names from then till about 1960, but that proportionately slightly more will have been missed from 1961 to 1995.

• However, the computerised databases we have are not geared to provide synonymies.

Some reasons

• Cultural and developmental differences have played a role.

• Historically almost all names were proposed in what we now term developed countries.

• Politics and languages can present barriers.• Recently the fundamental problem has been a lack of

vision: institutional compilation efforts have dwindled and perhaps lapsed.

Qualitative gaps

• Inaccurate dates – e.g. citations from later texts; publishing practices;

unsolved problems relating to part-works; mistaken attributions of first authorship etc.

• Inaccurate authorship data• Inaccurate spellings of names

This is the back of a rare wrapper from an August

1821 issue of a part work; the plates with it

carried French vernacular names only.

Temminck provided texts only in 1823.

Sherborn usually cited new names from the

later text.

Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1887, p. 558

First state (June) Second state (Nov)

Have we actively sought to fill them?

Rather sporadically!

• Significant efforts up to the 1930s.– Richmond, Sherborn, Mathews and Zimmer

Rather sporadically!

• Significant efforts up to the 1930s.– Richmond, Sherborn, Mathews and Zimmer

• Since then a tight focus on listing taxa seen as valid was expressed in name-specific efforts.

• Publication-focussed work has received renewed attention in the last fifteen years or so.

Name-specific efforts

• The Peters’s Check-list volumes listed only recent synonyms (e.g. not repeating older synonymy)

Name-specific efforts

• The Peters’s Check-list volumes listed only recent synonyms (e.g. not repeating older synonymy)

• Subsequent world Checklists (e.g. those by Sibley & Monroe, Clements, and Howard & Moore) gave no authors, dates or citations (and had no synonyms)

Name-specific efforts

• The Peters’s Check-list volumes listed only recent synonyms (e.g. not repeating older synonymy)

• Subsequent world Checklists (e.g. those by Sibley & Monroe, Clements, and Howard & Moore) gave no authors, dates or citations (and had no synonyms)

• The 2003 edition of Howard & Moore added authors and dates and post-Peters names including synonyms had linked citations.

Publication-focussed work

Synonym-specific work

• The most complete source certainly up to the mid 20th century is the Richmond Index.

Synonym-specific work

• The most complete source certainly up to the mid 20th century is the Richmond Index.

• However this is a source only. Each card uses the original combination of the name and no subsequent combination is recorded.

• No card links a synonym to a name in use.

Synonym-specific work

• The most complete source certainly up to the mid 20th century is the Richmond Index.

• However this is a source only. Each card uses the original combination of the name and no subsequent combination is recorded.

• No card links a synonym to a name in use.• No hierarchical list of synonyms has yet been

completed. Such lists (for genus-group names and for species-group names) are sorely needed.

What have we done to fill the gaps?

Species-group names

• We guess that there may be 120,000 ± 20% avian names to be registered retrospectively in ZooBank. Perhaps 29,000 are in use for recognized taxa. Of the rest, all synonyms, perhaps another 40,000 are in held in databases. The rest have just not got there.

• Causes: the diminution and eventual virtual cessation of comprehensive “card indexing”; lack of leadership; poor understanding of the gaps in the basic works.

Genus-group names

A similar guess suggests that some 17,000 generic names have been proposed.While this may seem slightly bizarre at 1.7 per species, many will be subjective junior synonyms within ‘species-rich’ genera, and therefore available for use, following the splits required by recent molecular studies.Currently only amateur databases.

Family-group names

Bock (1994) tabulated a total of 276 accepted avian family names and another 1052 synonyms at family-group level. Between 1860 and 1993 only 70 accepted ones were added.Since then and not least due to molecular studies a substantial number of names has been proposed. Difficulties in locating some old works still needs to be overcome to allow creation of a LAN that can achieve consensual support.

The main sources

• Sherborn’s legacy: how much in the cards is not in Index Animalium? How secure are these and is there any back-up if they should be lost?

• The Richmond Index: scanned, but enquiries suggest there is no claim to its having been constantly added to in full over the years, especially recently.

• The “Reftax” database (MNHN, Paris): held integral citational data. Abandoned!

The history of collaboration

• Good! Sherborn and Richmond exchanged letters and Mathews was in contact with both men.

The history of collaboration

• Good! Sherborn and Richmond exchanged letters and Mathews was in contact with both men.

• No evidence noted recently of any collective project to ensure new names in ornithology are collected.

The history of collaboration

• Good! Sherborn and Richmond exchanged letters and Mathews was in contact with both men.

• No evidence noted recently of any collective project to ensure new names in ornithology are collected.

• Reliance has been placed on the Zoological Record which alone does not suffice.

The history of collaboration

• Good! Sherborn and Richmond exchanged letters and Mathews was in contact with both men.

• No evidence noted recently of any collective project to ensure new names in ornithology are collected.

• Reliance has been placed on the Zoological Record which alone does not suffice.

• No apparent evidence of leadership from the IOC, the BOU, the AOU, or anyone else.

The history of collaboration

• Good! Sherborn and Richmond exchanged letters and Mathews was in contact with both men.

• No evidence noted recently of any collective project to ensure new names in ornithology are collected.

• Reliance has been placed on the Zoological Record which alone does not suffice.

• No apparent evidence of leadership from the IOC, the BOU, the AOU, or anyone else.

• Computers have brought little collaboration.

How substantial a problem do we still have?

The present situation

• Very few alpha-taxonomists.

The present situation

• Very few alpha-taxonomists.• Interest in nomenclature as a subject minimal.

The present situation

• Very few alpha-taxonomists.• Interest in nomenclature as a subject minimal.• Key databases now “amateur efforts”.

The present situation

• Very few alpha-taxonomists.• Interest in nomenclature as a subject minimal.• Key databases now “amateur efforts”.• Availability of time and funds modest.

The present situation

• Very few alpha-taxonomists.• Interest in nomenclature as a subject minimal.• Key databases now “amateur efforts”.• Availability of time and funds modest.• Lack of encouragement from internationally

recognised leading professionals. Mayr is missed!

Future collaboration

• BHL shows collaboration is possible.

Future collaboration

• BHL shows collaboration is possible. • Ornithology must embrace ZooBank.

Future collaboration

• BHL shows collaboration is possible. • Ornithology must embrace ZooBank.• Lists of Available Names.

Future collaboration

• BHL shows collaboration is possible. • Ornithology must embrace ZooBank.• Lists of Available Names.• Validation of ZooBank Registration (especially

retrospective registration).

Future collaboration

• BHL shows collaboration is possible. • Ornithology must embrace ZooBank.• Lists of Available Names.• Validation of ZooBank Registration (especially

retrospective registration).• Without a degree of funding the quality of this will

never be thoroughly reliable and will be many years in achievement.

Conclusions

• Ornithologists’ lost the plot as regards building and maintaining nomenclators.

• The advent of computers coincided with the minimalization of names but encouraged keen amateurs to step in.

• Thus such work as has been done is of limited value. The quality control behind it is rarely well documented. Thus all retrospective registration of avian names in ZooBank will need to be validated from the original publication.

The Sherborn ‘slips’ an appeal

• Without support from the NHM Sherborn would probably never have completed Part II of the Index Animalium.

• Most, perhaps all, of his slips, are held in the NHM Rare Book Room. Their organisation needs careful study by one or more bibliographers and will definitely yield some new information and perhaps explanations for some curious changes in his use of dates.

• The NHM is urged to arrange such study and then to determine the best option for the continued preservation of the slips and other related Sherborniana, all appropriately housed.