Also, I have a doubt on the type species of Plocealauda
I had not had a close look at this one before.
Plocealauda was originally used in:
Hodgson BH. 1844. Catalogue of Nipalese birds, collected between 1824 and 1844. Zool. Miscell. (Gray): 81-86.
(I assume this is the source that Alström et al. have in mind when they attribute
Plocealauda to "J. E. Gray 1844". Subsequent comments by Hodgson himself indicate that Gray had indeed (lightly) edited the work before publishing it. However, this cannot be deduced from the contents of the work, which Gray clearly attributed to Hodgson alone when he published it in 1844.)
This work is a list of species names, followed by one or more number(s) referring to unpublished drawings and specimens, without any description. The only way a genus-group name can be available from such a work, is if it happened to have been combined with "one or more available specific names [...] provided that the specific name or names can be unambiguously assigned to a nominal species-group taxon or taxa". This was certainly not the case of :
...which is completely nude.
Plocealauda can thus certainly not be cited as available from this source.
The immediately subsequent appearance of the name seems to have been, in synonymy, in:
[Gray JE, Gray GR.] 1846 [= 1847]. Catalogue of the specimens and drawings of mammalia and birds of Nepal and Thibet presented by B.H. Hodgson Esq. to the British Museum. The Trustees (of the British Museum), London.
(The preface of this work is signed by JE Gray and states that GR Gray had worked on the identification of Hodgson's birds; the rest is technically anonymous. The work has been variously attributed to JE Gray alone, GR Gray alone, JE Gray & GR Gray, or even to Hodgson.
Sherborn 1926 indicated that it had been "laid upon the table" of the Trustees of the British Museum (a pre-publication step) on 9 Jan 1847.)
THE JAVA MIRAFRA. Mirafra javanica, Horsf. Linn. Trans, xiii. p. 159. Alauda mirafra, Temm. Plocealauda typica, Hodgs. Gray, Zool. Misc. p. 84, pl. col. 305.
If the name is taken from here, the type under the standard provisions of the Code is the nominal species denoted by the valid name of the single included taxonomic species, i.e.,
Mirafra javanica Horsfield 1821, by monotypy.
Subsequently,
in the Nov 1847 issue of Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Blyth commented that Hodgson's
Plocealauda typica was actually
Mirafra assamica McClelland 1840, and distinct from
Mirafra javanica Horsfield. If so, the type of
Plocealauda could probably be claimed to be misidentified, and be corrected to
Mirafra assamica McClelland 1840 under
ICZN 70.3.2. Note that this would require an actual act, explicitly applying this article of the 4th ed. of the ICZN, and published according to the requirements of the Code after 1999. In the absence of such a published act, the type could only remain as fixed in the OD. The misidentification itself, even if clearly demonstrable, does not change this; earlier actions, such as the designation of another species as the type by earlier authors, carry no weight.
However... The identity of the type may not be the only problem with this name.
The name is in synonymy in [Gray & Gray] 1846 [= 1847] (
ICZN 11.5 not fulfilled) : it can thus only be regarded as available from there (under
ICZN 11.6.1) if it was "treated before 1961 as an available name and either adopted as the name of a taxon or treated as a senior homonym". Did this actually happen ?
Plocealauda has no known homonyms so far as I can find; and, on a quick search, I did not find it unambiguously endorsed as a valid name anywhere after Hodgson 1844. (NB -- The entire text of Hodgson 1844 was republished
in J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal in 1855, with the addition of an introduction in which Hodgson explained that he was frequently asked for copies but had no more left, which left him unable to comply to such requests.
Plocealauda typica appears there, of course, as a valid name; but as the purpose of this republication appears to have been, exclusively, to make the consultation of the 1844 text possible, I don't think that the validity of the name can be regarded as having been endorsed a second time in 1855.)
If we cannot find a pre-1961 work were
Plocealauda was taken out of synonymy and used as the valid name of a taxon, this name will simply be unavailable.
