518 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
he gives as “savanna.” In our current literature this last appears 
as the method of spelling the bird’s name in English, which is clearly 
misleading. In its general application “savanna” might be very 
appropriate in view of the species’ habitat, but Wilson intended it 
otherwise, and “Savannah sparrow” is the proper form of the 
English name. 
The term “evening” in the vernacular of Hesperiphona vesper- 
tina as given to the species by Cooper (Annals N. Y. Lyceum Nat. 
Hist., I, 220) conveys, as does the scientific name, the idea of the 
west or the place of sunset. 
Geothlypis trichas was called by Bartram “the olive colored 
yellowthroated wren” (Travels, 292). Of the bird’s present English 
name I find the following interesting reference in Edward’s Glean- 
ings (V, 57): “J. Petiver, in his Gazophylacium, plate vi, has 
given the figure of a bird, which I believe to be the same with this; 
for which reason I continue the name he has given it * * #* 
‘Avis Marylandica gutture luteo, the Maryland yellowthroat. This 
the Rev. Mr. H. Jones sent me from Maryland.’” Edwards later 
received the bird from Bartram with a drawing “very neatly and 
exactly done, by Mr. William Bartram, of Pennsylvania, who hath 
enabled me to give a further account of this bird, for he says it fre- 
quents thickets and low bushes by runs (of water, I suppose, he 
means) and low grounds; it leaves Pennsylvania at the approach of 
winter, and is supposed to go to a warmer climate.” 
To Wilson we owe the place names of five of our species of 
warblers—the Kentucky, Connecticut, Tennessee, Nashville, and Cape 
May—from the State or locality of the first capture by him of the 
species in question. John Cassin named a species of Vireo “ Phila- 
delphia” after the city in the neighborhood of which he obtained 
his type specimen. 
Thryothorus ludovicianus obtained its vernacular through Bar- 
tram—(regulus magnus) the great wren of Carolina” (Travels, 
291). This Wilson transposed into “ Great Carolina wren.” 
The “ Blackburnian warbler” is so called by Pennant and Latham, 
and was named in honor of Mrs. Hugh Blackburn, of London. 
A number of our birds acquired their names in the first half of 
the last century in honor of certain persons known to their describers, 
as Lincoln’s, Henslow’s, LeConte’s, and Harris’s sparrows; Town- 
send’s, Audubon’s, Swainson’s, and Bachman’s warblers; Lewis’s 
woodpecker ; Clark’s nutcracker ; Steller’s and Woodhouse’s jays, and 
many others of early and recent date. 
“ Louisiana,” as applied to the species of tanager (Piranga ludo- 
viciana), and the water thrush (Setwrus motacilla) refers to the 
