• 98 Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature PROPOSED USE OF THE PLENARY POWERS TO SUP-PRESS THE NAME " TYRANNULA " SWAINSON, 1827, AND TO DESIGNATE A TYPE SPECIES FOR " MYIOBIUS " DARWIN. 1839 (CLASS AVES) By JOHN T. ZIMMER {The American Museum of Natural History, New York) (Commission's reference Z.N.(S.)676) The object of the present apphcation is to ask the International Com-mission on Zoological Nomenclature to use its plenary powers to vary the normal operation of the Rules for the purpose of preventing the confusion and disturbance in long estabhshed nomenclatural practice if those rules were to be appUed strictly to the names Tyrannula Swainson, 1827, and Myioibius Darwin, 1839 (Class Aves). 2. The relevant facts concerning the foregoing names are as follows. Darwin pubhshed the name Myiobius (July 1839, Zool. Voy. " Beadle " 3(9) : 46) to replace the name Tyrannula Swainson, 1827, which he regarded as an invalid junior homonym of Tyrannulus Vieillot, 1816 [Analyse : 31). Darwin did not designate a type species for Myiobius, but in 1840 Gray (G. R.) {List Gen. Birds : 30) selected Musdcapa " barbatus " Gmelin (i.e. Muscicapa barbata GmeHn, 1788, in Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. (ed. 13) 1 : 933) as the type species of this genus. At the same time Gray, following Darwin, placed Tyrannula Swainson in the synonymy both of Myiobius Darwin and of Pyrocephalus Gould, [1839]. 3. The foregoing arrangement has been followed by subsequent workers with httle disagreement, and Myiobius has been current for over a century. One of the decisions taken by the International Congress of Zoology (on the recommendation of the Conamission) at Paris in 1948, though, in itself, quite acceptable, has, however, introduced a complication in the present case, which, if not remedied in the manner now suggested, woidd have objectionable results. The decision in question was that under which a generic name published before 1st January, 1931, is to be accepted as having been published with an indication, if the names of previously estabhshed species are cited imder the new generic name, even if no description of any kind was given for the new genus (see 1950, Bull. zool. Notnencl. 4 : 80). 4. The generic name Tyrannula was first pubUshed by Swainson with a formal description in a paper pubhshed in December 1827 {Zool. J. 3 : 358). Among the species referred to Tyrannula in this paper was Muscicapa barbata Gmelin, which (as already noted) Gray later selected as the type species of the substitute genus Myiobius Darwin, thereby establishing it also as the type species of Tyrannula, Swainson, if the paper of December 1827 had been the first valid pubhcation of that name. Unfortunately, however, the December paper was preceded by another published in May 1827 {Phil. Mag. (n.s.) 1(5) Bull. zool. Nomend., Vol. 9 (October 1952)
Proposed use of the plenary powers to suppress the name Tyrannula Swainson, 1827, and to designate a type species for Myiobius Darwin, 1839 (class Aves)
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