Des Murs edit

Thanks for sorting this - all I could find was that his initial was O and the name of the book jimfbleak 12:17, 2 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Science pearls edit

Hello,

Since you contributed in the past to the publications’ lists, I thought that you might be interested in this new project. I’ll be glad if you will continue contributing. Thanks,APH 10:42, 11 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Imperial Eagles edit

Hi - could you let me know the source for your comment about the support for the split of Spanish Imperial Eagle & Eastern Imperial Eagle being supported by DNA studies? Thanks SP-KP 17:23, 2 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

Timeline of Entomology edit

That was quick. Very many thanks.I really wasn't looking forward to that this am. Very best wishes Notafly in very rainy Ireland.

John Latham edit

No. The linking issue is likely to be because our coverage of the law, particularly in Australia, is lousy. Even today, Latham remains one of Australia's most notable jurists - he was Chief Justice for nearly twenty years, and was counsel in one of the most significant cases in Australian history. I'm not disputing that the ornithologist is tremendously notable, but rather that the jurist is notable enough that a disambiguation page is appropriate. Ambi 07:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

Timeline of Entomology edit

Hi Still raining here in Ireland. Could you sort out something for me please. I have a message telling me the Timeline is too big. Can I split it/ or better would you be very kind and do this for me? Four parts would be best- Prior to 1800;1800-1850; 1850 -1900; 1900 to date.I'm hoping everyone likes the timeline which is meant to function also as an index to the Entomologists pages.I put some pictures in to brighten it up a bit. Can't overdo my thanks so far Notafly

Timeline of Entomology edit

You fixed it Wonderful Many many thanks Notafly

George Shaw edit

Hello Smallweed, my name is TomCatX from the German Wikipedia, so first I have to apologize for my worse English. I've seen, that you are the first author of the article George Shaw and recently you added some more informations about his life. I had translated your text first into german some months ago and then I "scanned" the Internet to find out more informations about him. This was relatively hard because I never found a complete biography and so I had to put one little piece of information to another. So I wonder about the information source you use. I've found out that his parents were Timothy and Jane Shaw because Timothy was the vicar of Bierton for many years and the inscripts of his and his family grave still exists and were noted on a page of the Biertown Internet-Site. On this inscript another Jane Shaw with different life data is mentioned, so I think it has to be his sister. George died in London which is mentioned here, If you click on "Enlarge Image". Then I have another question: Was his full name really George Kearsley Shaw? I think this is the name of his publisher George Kearsly and maybe there is some mixing up with this two names but I am not sure. That's all for now, my very best wishes, TomCatX 08:56, 23 October 2005 (UTC).


Thank you for your answer to my question. Maybe I have more informations for you:
My very best wishes, TomCatX, 31 October 2005

I've got plenty of material on River Tern, but I'll be way for a week - if you think of it remind me and I'll write it up. jimfbleak 19:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

Dendroica edit

To wikify a page is to remove all HTML markup tags that have a Wikipedia equivalent and replace them with Wikipedia tags. In the page that I tagged for wikifying, there were several <i> tags that should be replaced by '' either side of the text. See also [Wiki Markup]

Hope this clarifies things. Stifle 14:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

Scavenging for photographs edit

I think this yahoo group will interest you India-nature-pixs-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

It has a whole load of photographers submitting images of wildlife in India and almost all the ones I have contacted have been willing to submit pictures under cc-by-sa.

Only problem is that you need to be subscribed and there is no archive of older pictures.

Shyamal 12:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

Timeline of Entomology edit

Hi Smallweed Many thanks for your continuing help.The timeline as well as providing a history also functions as an index as you point out. Really do appreciate your efforts. Rainy and cold here in Ireland today Notafly 08:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

Thanks a ton edit

for all the cleanup on my trail.. Shyamal 14:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

i have a couple of queries that I think you will be able to help me with

  • I have an image Liana.jpg in wikimedia commons that i want to put into Liana but i always get the en:wikipedia image. Is there a way to specify the image source?
  • I would like to have a thumbnail gallery of images from taxoboxes automatically shown with the images linking to the actual species articles. Is there a way to do this ? Is this a good idea ? It would be help make something like a field guide to some of the species.

thanks Shyamal 11:33, 28 November 2005 (UTC) The thumbnail galleries would be in the List of .... pages.Reply


Thanks again for cleaning up after me and linking author names. Shyamal 12:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Using Scientific names for species pages edit

I understand that you prefer using the Common names as the primary page naming convention for bird names. Somehow I just seem to prefer using scientific names since they are so much most stable unlike the common names. Especially so for the Indian region since there are too many fieldguides for the region now and they all use different names. The common names used by Grimmett, Inskipp and Inskipp are not very popular except perhaps among tourist birdwatchers to the region. Incidentally the species treatments are much better in the new work by Pamela Rasmussen and this for instance would require Southern Hill Myna to not redirect back to Hill Myna. And for other taxa where common names are sometimes hard to come by, I guess scientific names are much easier to have. cheers Shyamal 06:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Maria Sybilla Merian edit

A nice account translated from the more complete German Wikipedia has been added to the stub of this interesting entomologist.However she also appears under the same name as a Swiss Illustrator Artist. She was I think of Swiss parentage but born in one of the "German" states. It is clear that the two accounts should be merged preferably under Entomology and Swiss Illustrators. Should I proceed? Best wishes from an oddly warm Ireland Notafly 15:29, 12 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Taxobox format edit

I see two different taxobox formats, I use the same format that you use, but I see others such as User:Eugene_van_der_Pijll using a different one on Malabar Civet for instance. I am unable to find which is the preferred or more uptodate format ? Shyamal 12:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

James Murray edit

I have a photocopy of some sections of his guide to the edible birds. Will check if there any preface having any information and let you know. Shyamal 12:29, 16 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

The Edible and Game Birds of British India
with its dependencies and Ceylon
with Woodcuts, Lithographs and Coloured Illustrations
by James A. Murray, F.S.A.L.,

Member of the Natural History and Anthropological Societies of Bombay; 
Manager, Victoria Natural History Institute; 
late Curator, Kurrachee Municipal Library and Museum; 
Author of "A Handbook to the Geology, Botany and Zoology of Sind;" 
"The Plants and Drugs of Sind;" "Kurrachee to Kandahar;" 
"The Vertebrate Zoology of Sind;" "The Reptiles of Sind;" 
and "THE AVIFAUNA OF BRITISH INDIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES."

LONDON:-TRÜBNER & Co, 13 Ludgate Hill
BOMBAY:- EDUCATION SOCIETY's PRESS, BYCULLA

Not much I am afraid. Shyamal 14:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Władysław Taczanowski edit

Hiya, I was looking at the Władysław Taczanowski article, and wanted to verify some of the information. Did you create the page? If so, could you let me know what your sources were, so I know where to look? I think I may be related to him, and want to doublecheck this. Thanks very much, Elonka 13:16, 1 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

taxobox help edit

Hullo. I didn't know some of the info for the Scarlet Robin's taxobox. If you've got a moment, please check it out. The Flame Robin article may provide a bit of assistance. Tomertalk 11:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. :-) Tomertalk 11:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

OK, I started Regent Parrot now too. I based the taxobox info on the dutch article which just said "Lear" for the author, so I had to take a rather wild guess as to who "Lear" was... Tomertalk 22:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks...I shoulda taken that {{bird-stub}} offa there a long time ago. :-p Tomertalk 20:53, 23 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

More help needed on this... the Vampire Finch (Geospiza nebulosa), which seems to be the Wolf Island (Galapagos) subspecies of Sharp-beaked Ground Finch (Geospiza difficilis), is not listed on the page you gave me. That said, some sources on a google search seem to call the Sharp-beaked Ground Finch Geospiza nebulosa instead of Geospiza difficilis, which is adding to my confusion. Anyhoo, I'm thinking maybe it would be prudent to find some more authoritative source on Darwin's finches before proceeding with more articles, but meanwhile there are some question marks I've left in the Vampire Finch taxobox. Tomertalk 03:01, 26 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

From what I've read, the Vampire Finch is the Wolf Island subspecies of the Sharp-beaked Ground Finch... Do you happen to have access to either of the offline sources mentioned in the Darwin's finches article, or to any other possible sources that discuss the Vampire Finch? I'd like to track down where this comes from...if the only thing that distinguishes them from the Sharp-beaked Ground Finch is their diet, I find it odd that they'd be assigned to a distinct species. Tomertalk 09:25, 27 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
After a great deal of digging around, I find that a number of places call the species Geospiza difficilis and others Geospiza nebulosa, but only one that lists both[1]. Since none of the sources I've seen list either name as specifically referring to Sharp-beaked Ground Finch any more than to Vampire Finch (nor vice versa), it seems that there are 2 competing names. What remains then, is to figure out which sources are more authoritative... and if there is a genuine disagreement within the scientific community over what the name of the bird should be, that can be covered in the article, but for right now, what I'm seeing is that they're the same species, with 2 different names. A google search for Geospiza difficilis (excluding wikipedia and mirrors) returns 402 hits[2], while Geospiza nebulosa (excluding wikipedia and mirrors) returns only 55[3]. I ran the search that way because I was thinking maybe this difference had started on wikipedia, but running the search without excluding WP and mirrors returns 466[4] and 67[5] respectively. Conclusion: at first blush, I don't see that this is an inconsistency that was spawned by malicious editing on WP. I'm cross-posting this to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds, just so you know, but I really don't have the resources available to me to figure this out on my own. Thanks for your time, Tomertalk 10:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks edit

Thanks for changing the frog articles to include the correct authority. --liquidGhoul 03:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Please check your WP:NA entry edit

Greetings, editor! Your name appears on Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts. If you have not done so lately, please take a look at that page and check your listing to be sure that following the particulars are correct:

  1. If you are an admin, please remove your name from the list.
  2. If you are currently interested in being considered for adminship, please be sure your name is in bold; if you are opposed to being considered for adminship, please cross out your name (but do not delete it, as it will automatically be re-added in the next page update).
  3. Please check to see if you are in the right category for classification by number of edits.

Thank you, and have a wiki wiki day! BD2412 T 02:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Chew Valley Lake FAC edit

Hi, I've resubmitted Chew Valley Lake as a featured article candidate, because it didn't receive enough support last time.

As you have edited this page in the past I wondered if you would be willing to visit and comment/support on the nomination? Rod 20:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Crowned Eagle edit

Regarding your moving of the Crowned Eagle page:

  • While I'm grateful for your concern, unfortunately I'm going to have to revert this. Google search for Crowned Eagle and it is indeed Stephanoaetus coronatus that shows up exclusively on the first 5 pages at least. Please note that I'm an experienced birder and thus consider myself almost an authority on the matter. This is a matter of notablity, and a revert is required. Should you wish to debate this further, I'll be happy to get a mediation going over it. Thanks, TydeNet 05:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)Reply
    • Good work with the renaming. The rename combined with the disambig should solve all. Keep it up. TydeNet 10:51, 17 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

James Augustus Murray edit

I just added a stub for James Augustus Murray and discovered another entry James Murray (lexicographer) and it appears that they are the same, but the latter articles says nothing about the zoological contributions, but the online library catalogue of the Natural History Museum London clearly gives the following author and references (NHM catalogue)

Murray, James Augustus Henry, Sir.(1887-1890) The Avifauna of British India and its dependencies : a systematic account, with descriptions of all the known species of Birds inhabiting British India . tables of their geographical distribution in Persia, Beloochistan, Afghanistan, Sind, Punjab, N.W. Provinces, and the peninsula of India generally. London ; Bombay, 1887-1890.
Murray, James Augustus Henry, Sir. (1890) The Avifauna of the Island of Ceylon : a systematic account, with descriptions, of all the known species of birds inhabiting the island, also observations on their habits, nidification, &c., and tables of their geographical distribution throughout India, &c. London ; Bombay, 1890.

How do we reconcile this, perhaps User:Flapdragon can help. Shyamal 03:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

Intruiguing. I note also The Zoology of Beloochistan and Southern Afghanistan, The Plants and Drugs of Sind, The Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, etc. I can't be certain, but while Murray was interested in natural history in his youth, and it's certainly a remarkable coincidence of names, it seems to me it can't be the same man. He was far too busy at that time working on the OED to be romping round the subcontinent cataloguing plants. As far as I know he never went to India, and there's no mention of anything relevant in his DNB entry. If only we had some dates for the naturalist (the lexicographer lived 1837–1915). It might be worth contacting OED (perhaps through oed.com or askoxford.com), but I think we can be fairly safe in assuming they're not the same man. Flapdragon 14:10, 28 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
OK, having now actually read the stub(!) -- curator at the Kurrachee Municipal Library and Museum, etc -- I am now certain they are not the same man! Perhaps, unless he was known by those three names, the entry should be entitled James Murray (naturalist), and James Augustus Murray made into a disambiguation page? Flapdragon 14:13, 28 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
On the point about dates, what's the source of those given? Is there a confusion with the lexicographer? Flapdragon 14:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
Many thanks, I have done the changes, so it is now J. A. Murray (naturalist) and the other redirects to Sir James Augustus Murray. I have written a note to the NHM library folks-hope they can help us and correct their catalogue. Shyamal 03:35, 29 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
NHM has confirmed error in their catalogue and will be fixing it. They have not been able to find much about this Murray either :( Shyamal 09:11, 23 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

Tanagers edit

I've written Passerini's Tanager and Cherrie's Tanager, but I can't find anything on Messrs Passerini or Cherrie. I'd be grateful if you could help on this, thanks, jimfbleak 06:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for Cherrie, I'm sure we'll get Passerini eventually, jimfbleak 05:24, 20 May 2006 (UTC)Reply
I've tracked down Signor Passerini, and added him to the article, but not enough to do even a stub for him - I think he was early 19th century. jimfbleak 15:02, 21 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hair-crested Drongo edit

Hair-crested Drongo is very fine. In fact I grew up on that name until the new generation guides changed it to Spangled Drongo. Thanks a ton for the cats and author links. Shyamal 02:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

WikiLove! edit


List of namesakes of birds to do edit

Hi Smallweed - I've started Ludwik Mlokosiewicz. Can you check it over for relevant categories, style, any additional info, etc., please! - thanks, MPF 12:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

Also, should the page be moved to the Polish orthography Ludwik Młokosiewicz (with the stroke through the l)? - MPF 12:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)Reply