Somali Crombec

SCI Name:  Sylvietta isabellina
Protonym:  Sylviella isabellina Pub.FieldColumb.Mus.Ornith. 1 p.44
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Macrosphenidae / Sylvietta
Taxonomy Code:  somcro1
Type Locality:  Le Gud, Somaliland.
Author:  Elliot
Publish Year:  1897
IUCN Status:  Least Concern

DEFINITIONS

SYLVIETTA
(Macrosphenidae; Ϯ Northern Crombec S. brachyura) Mod. L. sylvietta  little warbler, woodland sprite   < dim. genus Sylvia Scopoli, 1769, warbler; "Familia SYLVIDÆ, Sectio Sylvidæ paroideæ, sub-gen. Sylvietta de La Fr., Sylvietta brachyura, de La Fr.   ...   Ce petit bec-fin du Sénégal a un plumage entièrement coloré comme celui du Figuier crombec de Levaillant, pl. 135, de l'Afrique australe, remarquable ainsi que lui par une queue d'une brièveté extraordinaire et conforme également quant aux pattes, mais ayant le bec plus allongé et plus arqué, d'où son nom hollandais de Krome-bec, bec courbé.  Levaillant observe à son sujet que, malgré ce bec allongé et arqué comme celui des Sucriers, cet oiseau ne se nourrit nullement du suc des fleurs, mais voltige sans cesse dans le feuillage à la recherche des insectes, sa seule nourriture comme les vrais figuiers: il indique seulement qu'il pourrait former un petit genre de transition entre les figuiers et les sucriers, ou Soui-mangas.  ...  Nous ajoutons donc aux Sylvietta crombec et brachyura, la Sylvietta icteropygialis, de La Fr." (de La Fresnaye 1839); "Sylvietta Lafresnaye, 1839, Rev. Zool. Paris, 2, p. 258. Type, by original designation, Sylvietta brachyura Lafresnaye." (Traylor in Peters 1986, XI, 207).
Var. Sylviella, Sylvetta, Sylveta.
Synon. Baeocerca, Oligocercus, Oligura.

isabellina / isabellinus
Mod. L. isabellinus  isabelline-coloured, greyish-yellow  < French  Isabelle  < Spanish  Isabella. The origin of the colour term ‘isabelline’ is now unknown. The most likely candidate is Isabel I Queen of Castile and Spain (reigned 1474-1504), said to have promised not to change her undergarments until Spain was freed from the Moors (Granada, the last Moorish ta’ifa, fell in 1492). In 1600, a gown of isabella colour is referred to in an inventory of the wardrobe of Elizabeth I Queen of England (Macleod 1954). The link with the Archduchess Isabella, daughter of Philip II of Spain, who vowed not to change her linen until Ostend (beseiged 1601-1604) was taken, is discounted by SOED 1944 (cf. "I came across an alternative explanation, that the word 'isabelline' is actually a corruption of the Italian word zibellino. This name was given to a pelt of an animal such as a marten or Sable, worn by wealthy women during the 16th century. It may originally derive from an Arabic word meaning 'lion' and therefore mean 'lion-coloured'" (Stephen Moss 2017, Birdwatch, 299, 77)). 
● ex “Isabelle” of Levaillant 1802 (syn. Acrocephalus baeticatus).
● ex “Emerillon de Cayenne” of de Buffon 1770-1783 (subsp. Falco sparverius).