118 BIRD NAMES. [No. 32. 



broad a statement, it is in good keeping, however, with much 

 that has been written about bird names. 



Mr. C. W. Beckham writes, in his I^otes on the Birds of 

 Bayou Sara, La., Bull. Nutt. Ornith. Club, July, 1882 : " Known 

 here by the Creole name of POULET DEAN." (i>^a«— French 

 doyen, the eldest, chief, or oldest-looking jjoulet, compared with 

 those smaller water-hens or poulets, the gallinules — and rails 

 perhaps.) 



To some at Buzzard's Bay, Mass., and commonly at East 

 Haddam, Conn., SEA-CROW;* to some at Stratford, Conn., and 

 at Baltimore, Md., CROW-BILL; in New Jersey at Manasquan, 

 Barnegat, and Tuckerton, Washington, D. C, Alexandria, Va., 

 and Crisfield, Md., CROW-DUCK. Giraud (1844) speaks of its 

 being known " in some sections " of Long Island, and at Egg 

 Harbor, N. J., as WHITE-BILL and HEN-BILL. To a majority 

 of the gunners at Stratford, Conn., it is the PELICK. 



Known very generally in Virginia, and southward to Florida, 

 and less commonly in latter state at Jacksonville, St. Augustine, 

 and Enterprise, as BLUE-PETER (quite familiar to the older 

 Floridians by this name) ; popularly known at Jacksonville, St. 

 Augustine, Enterprise, and Sanford by book-name, " Coot " — ^o. 

 33, however, sharing this name more or less indiscriminately 

 with the present species. 



March, in his Notes on the Birds of Jamaica (1863-64), calls 

 it IVORY-BILLED COOT, and 1 have a memorandum crediting it 

 also with the name MUD-COOT, the locality, however, or source 

 from which derived, having been carelessly omitted. 



The species is also credited with the name Flusterer. In 

 Wilson's Ornithology (where our bird is described as identical 

 Avith European Coot, F. atra) the following note appears : " In 

 (^arolina, they are called Jlusterers, from the noise they make in 



* A name given by many people along tlie coast from Cape May to Cape 

 Charles, to Black Skimmer, Rynchops nigra (not included in this book); this 

 is a long-winged gull-like bird with lower parts white, and legs red ; beak 

 black and red, and peculiarly compressed — " razor-billed ;" the upper man- 

 dible (upper division of bill) grooved to receive blade-like edge of much 

 larger lower mandible. 



