How Birds are Names. 



Priority,' the first specific name properly given to an aaitnal is the one 

 by which it shall always be known, provided of course, the same name 

 in combination with the generic term employed, has never been used 

 for any other animal. 



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

 "Robin" and be done with it? are easily answered. Widely dis- 

 tributed birds frequently have different names in different parts of their 

 range. The Flicker {Colaptes auratus) , for instance, has over one hun- 

 dred common or vernacular names. Again, the same name is often 

 applied to wholly different birds. Our "R.ohm(Merula migrator ia) 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 un- 

 fixed 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 Amer- 

 ican Ornithologists' Union. It furnishes a common as well as scientific 

 name for each of our birds, and is the recognized standard of nomen- 

 clature among American ornithologists. The names and numbers of 

 birds employed in this 'Color Key' are those of the American Ornithol- 

 ogists' 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 Merula 77iigratoria propinqua. 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 



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