NATURE NAMES IN AMERICA 73 



which they found in their new home is apparent in the vernacular names 

 bestowed upon a number of our native birds. It was most natural that 

 a bird so well known and so generally beloved as the English robin- 

 redbreast should find a namesake in America, even though very different 

 in habits and appearance. When the engaging birds with russet breasts 

 came about the New England settlements in early spring, and cheerful 

 pipings sounded through the clearings, ' robin ' became a term of wel- 

 come and endearment, In some early notices of the bird the entire 

 old world name of robin-redbreast was given. ' Daw ' was an early 

 name given to the crow blackbird or purple grackle by the settlers in 

 the Middle Colonies and in Virginia. Though but distantly related 

 to the jackdaw of England, this grackle 4 undoubtedly suggested the 

 name from its habit of gathering in colonies about dwellings, where 

 in the tops of tall pines and other shade trees it builds bulky nests. 

 The jackdaw frequents belfrys and towers, but our blackbird has more 

 of the rook in its nature, although a very different bird both in size 

 and general appearance. The flocking of these grackles about the 

 grounds of country houses and the noise of their vernal clatter is a 

 welcome sign of returning spring. It savors of old homesteads in 

 cultivated lands and suggests ancestral holdings, like the rooks in an 

 English spinney or the daws in castle towers. In this vein of thought 

 Lowell says ' they are the best substitute we have for rooks.' ' Black- 

 bird ' could only have been suggested by the generally dark color of the 

 bird seen at a distance and in certain lights. There is nothing about 

 our grackle that is in any way like the English blackbird. 



A name is frequently the symbol of some striking characteristic as 

 of color, or peculiarity of voice. Bluebird, redbird, yellow warbler, 

 goldfinch and many others are full of color suggestion, while cat- 

 bird, chat, phcebe, bobolink, towhee, song sparrow, and the like, appeal 

 to the auditory sense. The bluebird, the nearest we have in this 

 country to the English robin-redbreast and quite as lovable a bird in 

 its way, has found a place in literature as it has in the hearts of all 

 true lovers of the countryside. Alexander Wilson, poet and ornitholo- 

 gist, but first of all a poet, felt the charm of this bird when he immor- 

 talized its name in sympathetic prose and verse. The cardinal grosbeak 

 was known as e redbird ' to the Virginia settlers, and, later, when much 

 prized in London as a cage bird, its mellow, whistling notes won for it 

 the title of ' Virginia nightingale.' ' Cardinal ' has without doubt 

 come into our language through the French of Louisiana, and possibly 

 also, from the West Indies. The final 'grosbeak' is little used in 

 general talk. I have lately heard some persons speak of this bird as the 



4 We are indebted to science for this word ' grackle ' which is an Anglicized 

 form of the Latin Gracula — a jack daw, a proof that even the scientific mind 

 was biased in favor of recognizing the distant relationship. The black bird of 

 England is a thrush — the ouzel cock or merle of the old English poets. 



