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Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy 123

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160 4 Ornithologist <strong>and</strong> Zoogeographer<br />

Fig.4.9. Black Bulbul (Hypsipetes madagascariensis). Discontinuous geographical variation<br />

of alternative plumage characters in populations of northeastern Burma (Myanmar)<br />

<strong>and</strong> southwestern China. Rather uniform (stabilized) hybrid populations (3–5) inhabit<br />

isolated mountains between the ranges of four well-differentiated geographical subspecies<br />

(1 leucocephalus in S <strong>and</strong> SE China, 2 leucothorax, 6concolor, 7nigrescens, 8psaroides);<br />

hybrid populations: 3 stresemanni, 4sinensis, 5ambiens). Plumage characters: Blank–<br />

white, shaded–gray, solid–black. Sketches of birds by R.T. Peterson. From Mayr (1941n,<br />

1942e: 83)<br />

<strong>and</strong> Baker, the experts on the birds of this region, but eventually they accepted<br />

it. E. Stresemann in Berlin was working on a collection of birds from Sikkim<br />

obtained by Ernst Schäfer in 1938–1939, when he received the letter from Mayr<br />

(dated 23 May 1940) describing his two sibling species of minivets. Stresemann<br />

had already determined Schäfer’s specimens of Pericrocotus as belonging to one<br />

species (P. brevirostris) only <strong>and</strong> answered:

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