How Birds are Named 



The questions Why use all these Latin terms? Why not call the bird 

 '"Robin" and be done with it? are easily answered. Widely distributed 

 birds frequently have different names in different parts of their range. The 

 Flicker (Colaptes auratus), for instance, has over one hundred common or 

 vernacular names. Again, the same name is often applied to wholly different 

 birds. Our Robin (Planesticus migratorius) is not even a member of the 

 same family as the European Robin (Erithacus rubecola.) If, therefore, 

 we should write of birds or attempt to classify them only by their common 

 names, we should be dealing with such unfixed quantities that the result 

 would be inaccurate and misleading. But by using one name in a language 

 known to educated people of all countries, a writer may indicate, without 

 danger of being misunderstood, the particular animal to which he refers. 

 Among people speaking the same tongue, where a definite list of vernacular 

 names of animals has been established, they can of course be used instead of 

 the scientific names. 



Such a list of North American birds has been prepared by the American 

 Ornithologists' Union. It furnishes a common as well as scientific name for 

 each of our birds, and is the recognized standard of nomenclature among 

 American ornithologists. The names a»nd numbers of birds employed in this 

 Color Key are those of the American Ornithologists' Union's 'Check-List of 

 North American Birds.' 



It will be observed that in this 'Check-List,' and consequently in the 

 following pages, many birds have three scientific names, a generic, specific, 

 and sub-specific. The Western Robin, for example, appears as Planesticus 

 migratorius propinquus. What is the significance of this third name? 



In the days of Linnaeus, and for many years after, it was supposed that 

 a species was a distinct creation whose characters never varied. But in 

 comparatively recent years, as specimens have been gathered from through- 

 out the country inhabited by a species, comparison frequently shows that 

 specimens from one part of its range differ from those taken in another 

 part of its range. At intervening localities, however, intermediate specimens 

 will be found connecting the extremes. 



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