ANIMAL NAMES 



A COMMON cause of misconceptions in zoology is the use in 

 ordinary speech of a single name for several different sorts of 

 living things. 



We have in English numerous popular and familiar terms 

 covering familiar creatures. Wherever Englishmen have gone 

 they have carried these terms with them and, as best they 

 could, applied them to the birds and beasts of other lands. 

 Other races have done the same, and not infrequently their 

 names have been adopted into English with very varied mean- 

 ings. 



Robins, wrens, blackbirds and orioles are found almost 

 everywhere that Englishmen have settled. But the English 

 robin is a very different bird from what we call a robin, while 

 the robin of the West Indies is a sparrow. Some of our wrens 

 are closely related to the English wrens, but the wren of the 

 West Indies is a sort of thrush; there the true wrens are known 

 as God-birds. The English blackbird is, except in color, very 

 like our robin, with much the same habits and a very similar 

 song. Our blackbirds are of a very different type, related to 

 our orioles which have nothing in common, except the black 

 and yellow color, with the old world orioles. 



In the same way our New England hedge-hog is not at all 

 a hedge-hog, but a porcupine, a rodent instead of an in- 

 sectivore; our buffaloes are not buffaloes at all, but bison; 

 our elk are very different from the European elk, which are 

 like our moose. Again, our wild-cats are not true wild-cats, 

 which have long tails and look much hke domestic cats, but 

 lynxes. 



Trout is a very favorite name for fish. Our brook trout is 

 a charr and not a trout. Our sea-trout in the south is a kind 



II 



