No. 31.] BIRD NAMES. 113 



nection are generally given to birds that have no place in a list 

 of this kind — " booby " belonging in the books and elsewhere to 

 the gannets — geiyis Sula; and "noddy" to a Southern species 

 of tern — Anous stoUdus. 



Another name at ISTewberne for the Ruddy, and a very popu- 

 lar one, is LIGHT -WOOD KNOT. " Light-wood " is a Southern 

 name for very resinous or fatty portions of pine, commonly ob- 

 tained from trees that have been " scraped " for turpentine. 

 The knot of this " light-wood " is proverbially hard, and the 

 appellation is therefore like "hard-head," "tough-head," "stub- 

 and-twist," etc., and refers to the difficulty sometimes experi- 

 enced in quieting these creatures. To put shot into a Euddy 

 is one thing, to Ttill him quite another matter. 



In the neighborhood of Morehead, N. C, PADDY-WHACK ; 

 occasionally at Wilmington, same state, DINKEY (" Hard-head " 

 being the common name) ; and one Wilmington ducker told me 

 of hearing the Ruddy called DICKEY by certain South Carolina 

 gunners, — " Don't you know," said he, " how, when they start, 

 they go dickey-dickey-dickey ^ patting the water with their wrings 

 and feet ?" 



At Charleston, S. C, LEATHER-BACK ; on the Savannah River 

 (above Savannah), DUMPLING-DUCK ; and on the Ogeechee River, 

 Ga., HARD-TACK. 



In 1885, while devoting myself particularly to the study of 

 this species, it seems to have been unusually common. The late 

 C. S. Westcott (" Homo ") wrote from Philadelphia to Forest 

 and Stream of Oct. 29 : " The number of Stiff-tails that have 

 come this year is beyond anything for years. Twenty-five to 

 thirty per boat are the average returns each day below Chester." 

 The same fall I was told by John Kleinman, of Chicago, who is 

 not only a " crack shot," but a close observer of the habits of 

 birds as well, that he had rarely if ever before seen Bull-necks 

 so numerous. Mr. J. S. Atwood, of Provincetown, Mass., wrote 

 me, Oct. 11 (1885): "These Dippers are very numerous at the 

 present time in this locality, and gunners will get from twenty 

 to thirty in a day. We never see them in salt-w^ater." And Mr. 

 Atwood wrote again during the same month, " Some gunners 



