C19 Nestling specimens from different clutches

The images below are of nestling Western Ground Parrots from Gould's collection, but held in two different museums. It would also appear that the birds came from different clutches as the Drexel juvenile (one bird) has more down and less-developed feathers.

The bulk of the Gould collection of Australian birds is housed in the Drexel University, Philadelphia (see previous two postings). Unfortunately there is little documentation regarding location of this specimen except 'Western Australia'. It is likely that it was collected by John Gilbert, as he did collect in Western Australia for Gould. No documentation has been found as to a more specific location though John Gilbert was familiar with Western Ground Parrots, having collected indigenous names for them from four regions in Western Australia.

The photo of the Drexel juvenile was supplied by Nate Rice of Drexel University, Philadelphia and is used with permission.

The two side by side nestlings are part of the British Museum of Natural History collection. There is more detail about these specimens in the postings of August 14 and 21, 2015.

The image is COPYRIGHT Natural History Museum.

Liverpool Museum,did have a nestling but it has been lost. Clemency Fisher of the Liverpool Museum supplied the following information. 

The entry from 13th Earl of Derby's Stock book for specimen D640d is "Nestling purchased off Gould Feb. 8 1844.From the sandplain near the ...... Hills, Australia."

Dr Fisher believes that the missing word is 'Wongan' or a permutation of that name and that the missing chick was part of the same clutch as that now held in the British Museum of Natural History.

Gould specimens in Philadelphia

The three Western Ground Parrot skins from the Gould Collection held in the Academy of Natural Science, Drexel University, Philadelphia are pictured below. How the collection came to be there is described in the previous posting.

Gould Collection ANSP 22980 Original no. 218 Western Australia Male

Gould Collection ANSP 22981 Original no. 219 Western Australia Undetermined gender

Gould Collection ANSP 22977 Original no. 223 Western Australia Undetermined gender, Juvenile

All four images below were supplied by Nate Rice, Drexel University, and are used with permission.

The birds are arranged 980, 981, and 977. Although only the male is formally determined as such, the other adult bird is clearly a female. Its beak shape and the streaks and blotches on the throat and upper breast are typical of female Western Ground Parrots. Males are usually larger than females as is the case here. The Juvenile appears to have the male beak shape.

The original labels were replaced and so if there was more specific information on when and where the birds were taken from the wild, and by whom, it is not now available. 

The photo below is the male bird, showing the red feathering above the nostrils (a mature bird), the broad ridge of the upper bill (male), the fine dark streaks on the throat and upper breast (adult male). 

Location of John Gould's collection of Australian birds

John Gould's comprehensive collection of Australian birds is housed in the Academy of Natural Sciences, Drexel University, Philadelphia. How this came about is described in the article below, which appeared in The Emu, Volume 38, October 1938. The Emu is the journal of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union (now Birdlife Australia).

This major Gould collection includes three Western Ground Parrot specimens. 

Several other Gould specimens of Australian birds, presumably duplicates, are in various locations having been sold or swapped individually or in small lots.

George Masters

The photo above and the text by Roslyn Jehne are taken from the University of Sydney website, and the text is only presented here in part. The three Western Ground Parrots in the Australian Museum collection were obtained by George Masters on two separate trips to Western Australia. 

Below the text is the authorization document for the second trip,1868. The document is held by the Australian Museum.

The Macleay Museum owes a great deal of its natural history collection to the enthusiasm of one man: prolific collector George Masters. Roslyn Jehne takes a look at the English gardener who became a fearless Aussie forager.

Naturalist and entomologist George Masters was born in Kent, England in July 1837. He first became interested in natural history while employed as a gardener. Migrating to Melbourne around 1856 or 1857, he was employed first looking after an entomological collection and then spent some time in Tasmania collecting insects for himself.

Masters arrived in Sydney about 1859 or 1860, continuing with his entomology collection in his spare time. While identifying insects at the Australian Museum, he found errors, which he pointed out to the curator Gerard Kreftt. Fate intervened in Masters’ life when he was introduced to William John Macleay (1820–91), Australian Museum Trustee, wealthy pastoralist, collector and politician and beneficiary of the so-called Macleayan Museum, including the famous insect cabinets of the Macleay family. Macleay employed Masters to collect for him in Port Denison in Queensland.

After returning from his trip in July 1862, Masters began collecting and exhibiting in earnest. Also a fine marksman and taxidermist, he collected a variety of bird skins. He was a robust man, who enjoyed the country sports of ‘huntin’, ‘shootin’ and ‘fishin’. Undaunted by the heat of the Australian climate, his personality well suited life as a collector. It was said of him that he was “a splendid shot, fearless in the bush with natives and frequently caught reptiles, including venomous snakes in his bare hands”.

From 1864 to 1874 he worked as Assistant Curator to Kreftt at the Australian Museum, making extensive collecting trips throughout Australia, including NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and Lord Howe Island. He also provided Macleay with specimens for his private museum. A prolific collector, Masters was responsible at one time for acquiring a considerable section of the Australian Museum’s collection.  

This authorization document is copyright Australian Museum.

Australian Museum WGPs

Below are three more photos of the Western Ground Parrots held in the Australian Museum Collection. The photos were supplied by Dr Walter Boles of that Museum and are used with permission.

The photos of individual adult female and male show a difference in the beak shape with the male's upper beak being broader with a grooved ridge at the centre.  The female has a sharper, finer ridge. Sometimes males have no groove, but a broad, rounded, ridge. 

The group photo of three adult birds  has the female on the left then two males. A female  held in the Western Australian Museum has a yellower belly than this but she also retains some blotching around the throat and upper breast as this bird (23539) has. Though both are adults, the male in the centre is probably younger than the male on the right (23538). The (presumed) older bird has very little dark blotching and only fine streaks on the throat and upper breast, and the yellow belly is more pronounced.

Juvenile WGPs are heavily blotched and streaked.

Western Ground Parrots in the Australian Museum

The image above was supplied by Dr Walter Boles of the Australian Museum, Sydney and is used with permission.

The three Western Ground Parrot specimens in the Australian Museum collection were all collected by Mr George Masters in the vicinity of King George's Sound, on the south coast of Western Australia near the town of Albany. Western Ground Parrots can no longer be found there.

No.23687 is a male collected in April 1866.

No.23538 is a male collected in April 1866.

No. 23539 is a female bird and was collected on 20 March 1868.

It would seem that Masters returned to the site in 1868 to collect a female for the AM as the birds collected in 1866 were both males.

The female was designated a syntype* by Alfred North in 1911 when he classified the Western Ground Parrots as Pezoporus flaviventris, a separate species from Pezoporus wallicus. This classification was over-ruled by Gregory Mathews a few years later. He classified the Western Ground Parrot as a subspecies: Pezoporus wallicus flaviventris. In 2010 there was a reversion to P. flaviventris and P. wallicus, each as separate species (Murphy et al. 2010).

More on the scientific names for the Western Ground Parrot may be found on the b-log posting of 21 September, 2013, entitled 'Many names'.

* Meaning of syntype (from Wikipedia)

1. One of two or more biological specimens or other elements used for the original published description of a species or subspecies where no holotype was designated.
2. One of two or more biological specimens or other elements simultaneously designated as type specimens in the original published description of a species or subspecies.

Reference
Murphy, S.A., Joseph, L., Burbidge, A.H. and Austin, J. (2010). A cryptic and critically endangered species revealed by mitochondrial DNA analyses: the western Ground Parrot. Conservation genetics 12: 595-600.

Swan River specimen

The city of Perth is built on the Swan River, Western Australia. The settlement was founded in 1829 as the Swan River Colony and it seems that there were ground parrots in the area at least until the 1840s when John Gilbert visited twice while collecting for John Gould. One strand of evidence for the presence of ground parrots in Perth is the native name for them, recorded by John Gilbert. Four different native names were recorded for different areas in southern Western Australia. The Perth name was Djar-doon-gur-ree.

The specimen below was part of a collection presented to the Natural History Museum (branch of the British Museum), by the then director, Richard Bowdler Sharpe. It is not recorded how he came by the collection or who actually collected the specimens, when they were collected, or exactly where. It is unlikely that ground parrots were present in the Swan River area by the beginning of the 1900s.

When John Gilbert first arrived in 1839, he mentioned in a letter that there were several collectors of bird specimens when he arrived, all hoping to make as much  money as possible. (Whittell, H.C. 'A review of the work of John Gilbert in Western Australia', in Emu 1941 pp. 112-129).

This bird specimen along with 18 others, was registered as part of the Natural History Museum collection on 18 June 1888. (Specimen number: 1888.6.18.17). It appears to be an adult female, by the shape of the upper mandible (curved for more than half its length indicates a female) and the colour of the throat feathers - there would be more streaking if it were a young bird.

The three photos below are all COPYRIGHT Natural History Museum.

Below is the original registration notation of the 19 specimens from the Swan River. The Western Ground Parrot, pictured above, is no. 17. The scientific names applied to these specimens, including that for the Western Ground Parrot, have in many instances changed. The name for the ground parrot in this list, and possibly for some of the other specimens, is miss-spelt. it should read Pezoporus formosus.