Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 93 PROPOSED USE OF THE PLENARY POWERS TO VALIDATE THE SPECIFIC NAME " OBSCURA " BEREZOWSKY & BIANCHI, 1891, AS PUBLISHED IN THE COMBINATION " LARVIVORA OBSCURA" (CLASS AVES) By CHARLES VAURIE {The American Museum of Natural History, New York) (Commission's reference : Z.N.(S.) 876) The object of the present application is to ask the Commission to use its Plenary Powers for the purpose of vaHdating the specific name obscura Bere-zowsky & Bianchi, 1891 {Aves Ezped. Potanini Gan-su : 97, pi. 1, fig. 2), as pubUshed in the combination Larvivora obscura, a name which is an invalid junior secondary homonjTn, in the genus Luscinia Forster, 1817, of the specific name obscura Brehm (C.L.), 1831 (Handb. Naturgesch. Vogel Deutschl. : 353), as pubhshed in the combination Cyanecula obscura. 2. The bird described as Larvivora obscura by Berezowsky & Bianchi is rare and in consequence the name obscura has not been cited often in the literature. It has however been in continuous use for sixtj^-one years (i.e. up to 1952) and has been used in every ornithological standard work such as Sharpe, 1903, Hand List of the Genera and Species of Birds (4 : 157) ; Hartert, 1910, Die Vogel der paldarktischen Fauna (1) : 741 ; Smj-thies, 1953, The Birds of Burma : 104, and the entire Russian ornithological Uterature. 3. In 1952 {Postilla, New Haven No. 13 : 24), however, Ripley pointed out that the name obscura Berezowsky & Bianchi, 1891, is invahd by reason of being a junior secondary homonym in the genus Luscinia of the name obscura Brehm, 1804, and replaced it bj' the name hachisukae in the combination Erithacus hachisukae. The name obscura Brehm, however, has never once been used in ornithology since it was first published, for it is a junior subjective synonjTn of cyanfcwZa Meisner, 1%()4: (Syst. Verz. Vog.Schweiz. : 30), as published in the combination Sylvia cyanecula (= Luscinia svecica cyanecula (Meisner)). Even as a 83Tionym, the name obscura Brehm has apparently been cited only once, namely, by Hartert (1910, Die Vogel der paldarktischen Fauna (1) : 748). It should be noted also that in spite of his having cited this name as a synonym, Hartert (:741) retained the name obscura Berezowsky & Bianchi in combination with the same generic name {Luscinia) as that imder which he had cited obscura Brehm (as a junior synonym of L/uscinia svecica cyanecula). 4. There is thus no danger whatever of the name obscura Berezowsky & Bianchi, 1891 (which as already explained has been in continuous use for over sixty years), being confused with the name obscura Brehm, which was a junior synonym of another name [cyanecula Meisner) at the time when it was first published and has not been adopted by a single author in the period of one BvU. tool. Nomencl. Vol. 11, Part 3. February 1956.
Proposed use of the plenary powers to validate the specific name obscura Berezowsky and Bianchi, 1891, as published in the combination Larvivora obscura (Class Aves)
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