Richmond Index -- species & subspecies

Version 3.001 (2015.02.15). Home Generic species & subspecies

Richomnd Index -- species and subspecies Complete Index A-Z (large file and most up to date; currently being proofed/corrected).

[------] Cafer, Abrornis acanthizoides - - Zygodactylus ignotus

Richmond Index -- species & subspecies (Under development)

Indices to the Infrageneric card images:

The essential resource here is The Richmond Index which is the property of the Division of Birds at the National Museum of Natural History, Washingtion, D.C.

Notes:

How to cite these images?
My current suggestion is to cite this as "Images of the cards in the Richmond Index, Bird Division, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. accessed via http://www.zoonomen.net [Date]."
Copies of the images themselves would be the best documentation of a particular point. This portion of the web site and these link-lists are designed to provide access to the images of the cards in the Richmond Index itself.

The Richmond Index is an alphabetically-arranged 3x5 card Index in the
Division of Birds at the National Museum of Natural History.

There are two sections: a Genus group name index, and an index
of infrageneric names. This section is intended to help with an
undestanding of the genus-group name portion of the Index.

The Index was initiated by Charles W. Richmond who was its
primary compiler. Richmond was a member of the Bird Division and worked on the Index
from 1889 (when he was was 21) till his death in 1932. Since then, work on the Index
has continued, at least into the 1990's. Cards have been added as recently as this year (2007).

The cards are arranged predominantly by alphabetical order. The order in which the images
are listed reflects, as much as possible, the physical order the cards were in
at the time the material was scanned. When more than one name is primarily
referenced on the cards, I try to have multiple individual named links that will all
link to the one card containing that name.
Departures from the purely alphabetical scheme usually result either from multiple names
listed on a single card or from the association of similarly
spelled names for example:
# Aepyornis Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire,I 1851
# Epiornis Bianconi 1865

A few irregularities appear to result from mis-filing of the cards. Some regions(note particularly the early portion of the "M" section -- e.g.
Malimbus) are in considerable alphabetic disarray.

We endeavored mightily to not introduce any more alphabetic irregularity
than we found, and I am sure that in some instances the
sequence of cards as listed is not faithful to the Index at the time we worked
with the material. I doubt we were responsible for any large scale disruptions.

Varying amounts of information are present on the cards; in their
fullest form they include the name, authority, full bibliographic citation, and
additional details. Many include information relating to derivation of the names,
types, type localities, and even full original descriptions.

It must be emphasized that Richmond was particularly careful and
knowledgable with regard to publishing/bibliographic details (dates of publication,
status of authorship &c.) and while Richmond is not always right, his work
is a more consistent, dependable than that found anywhere else in
the ornithological literature. In the past, many workers did not consult his Index
because of the problem of physical access. More recent workers (since 1992) have not
had that excuse; ignorance, laziness, or "inconvenience" must be the explanations now supplied.

Preliminary scans 2007.10.11-19
First phase of text listing 2015.01.21
The sequence here largely reflects the sequence of cards as encountered, and thus there may be irregularities of sequence, and neighboring cards should be examined.
Some scans may be incomplete (but most should be interpretable).
Some material required "flat-bed" scanning and will be included progressively; (material that does not result from the initial scan will have a suffix other than "A" or "a" in the image file name). The current list should not be considered to be complete, but it is very nearly so.
The support of the Bird Division, as well as the contributions and hard work by Missy Peterson, Laurel Peterson, Mercedes Foster, Roy McDiarmid, T. Chad Walter, Fiona Wilkinson, and Craig Ludwig were essential.
The Bird Division is in no way responsible for the deficiencies seen here (incomplete scans, or problems with the organization and presentation of the material).
[2010.11.08] I continue to be disappointed by the large number of partial scans we made and often scratch my head at the apparent order of the cards, wondering if somehow we altered the order, or skipped some sections. Very recently on a visit to the Richmond Library, I investigated a number of the cards with this in mind, and in the small number that I investigated, the scans reflected the order in the Cardex. A number of cards were scanned more than once, resulting in "duplicates" in my listing here. I believed (and believe) that duplicates are a better and smaller problem to deal with than "missed" scans.
[2010.11.08] The number of internet "sessions" for zoonomen continue to climb, and an increasing number (currently almost a third) are to the Richmond Index.
The list includes 66,147 unique entries (entries in the sense of Taxon name with or without Authority data) [2015.01.21].

For comparison the Peters Checklist Index includes approximatelyv 55000 name combinations.

Comments & Suggestions to Data Steward

Alan P. Peterson, M.D., POB 1999, Walla Walla, WA 99362-0999

Last updated 2015.02.15