The correct spelling of the specific name of the Double-barred Finch, Taeniopygia bichenovii (Vigors & Horsfield, 1827) (Passeriformes: Estrildidae).

In the just-published edition of the influential Howard & Moore global checklist of birds (Dickinson & Christidis 2014, Appendix 8), David and Dickinson introduced the novel spelling bichenoii to replace the specific name for the Doublebarred Finch. This finch, which is endemic to Australia and familiar as a cage bird world-wide, is currently known as Taeniopygia bichenovii (Vigors & Horsfield, 1827). The name was spelled bichenovii in its original description by Vigors & Horsfield (1827, p. 258), in the combination Fringilla bichenovii. Until David & Dickinson (l.c.), that spelling had been in unvaried use, in a multitude of checklists, manuals, regional Australian lists and field guides, as well as in hundreds of scientific and natural history papers both printed and electronic. Vigors & Horsfield had explicitly named the finch for James E. Bicheno, then secretary of the Linnean Society. This in turn led David & Dickinson (l.c., p.10) to replace bichenovii with bichenoii under Article 32.5.1 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, hereafter the Code (ICZN 1999). Article 32.5.1 deals with “spellings that must be corrected (incorrect original spellings)”. Its interpretation by David & Dickinson (2014) nevertheless mistakes its meaning and intent, which rule that only “clear evidence of an inadvertent error [italics ours], such as a lapsus calami or copyist’s or printer’s error” can be used to correct spellings that are original. As an example, the Code cites the correction of ninnaei to linnaei for names based explicitly on Linnaeus in original descriptions. In the case of “bicheno” in bichenovii, however, there is no such error: “bicheno...” was spelled out correctly in full. What is at issue, however, is the inserted “v” between “bicheno” and “ii”. It could have been added accidentally and qualify as a lapsus. But more likely, it was inserted intentionally as part of the latinization of the name Bicheno, to make it declinable in the second declension and sound euphonious at the same time. Two ensuing examples provide evidence for this. First, J.E. Bicheno has, to our knowledge, been commemorated by only one other Linnaean name, for a species of sedge described by F.M.B. Boott as Carex bichenoviana in 1858 (in Hooker 1860, p. 101). There the name is adjectival, and feminine in combination with a feminine generic name, but it is formed in exactly the same way as in bichenovii, with a “v” inserted in the same place. The spelling bichenoviana is also still used as valid in botany today. Secondly, in the work where Vigors & Horsfield (1827) published Fringilla bichenovii, the only other eponymous name which can be interpreted as ending with a phonetically long “o” was for Samuel Goodenough, then vice-president of the Linnean Society. Although the name “Goodenough” is often pronounced “gu:dǝnʌf” today, Wikipedia (2015) records the usual pronunciation as “gu:dǝnoʊ”, where the “u” and “v” are interchangeable in Latin. Vigors & Horsfield (1827, p. 245) evidently treated Goodenough’s name in the same way as bichenovii, spelling it goodenovii, with a “v” connecting the “o” and “ii”. That name in that spelling continues as the accepted species name of Australia’s Red-capped Robin Petroica goodenovii (Vigors & Horsfield, 1827) today, without “corrected” by Dickinson & David (2014, Appendix 8). This, moreover, is not the only case of Goodenough being transliterated into a Latin name with the connecting consonant “v”. De Vis (1890, p. 58) did so when describing Ninox goodenoviensis, a synonym of Ninox theomacha goldii Gurney, 1883 from Goodenough Island in the D’Entrecasteaux Archipelago, New Guinea. There is no evidence in either original description that these transliterations of Goodenough are accidental and not intentional, and therefore not correct original spellings under Articles 32.3 and 32.5 of the Code. Whether or not the name bichenovii is correctly latinized is irrelevant, because Article 32.5.1 of the Code goes on to expressly direct that “incorrect transliteration or latinization ...are not [italics ours] to be considered inadvertent errors”. In purpose, the article is concerned with correcting inadvertent slips, not spellings that are in any way intentional, even if erroneous. To approve correction of bichenovii to bichenoii, the burden of proof is placed squarely on clear evidence that