20 Gill, Pedioccetes and Pooccetes. \_Ui\ 



THE GENERIC NAMES PEDIOCCETES AND 

 POOCjETES. 



BY THEODORE GILL. 



The two generic names, Pedioccetes and Pooccetes, have been 

 much animadverted upon, but have nevertheless been adopted in 

 the A. O. U. Check-List of North American Birds. These names 

 were adopted because it was supposed that they were the first 

 ones published for the genera involved. That such was not the 

 case will be made evident. Not only were they not first pub- 

 lished, but before publication Baird himself substituted for them 

 names of entirely different etymology and only resembling them 

 in superficial appearance. The substitute names were of later 

 formation — "happy afterthoughts" — though published first in 

 the same volume. The substitute names were also adopted gen- 

 erally, and not until long afterwards were the abandoned names 

 taken up again and generally adopted. 



I. 



In 1858 Baird published his great work on the ' Birds of North 

 America,' under cover of the ' Reports of Explorations and Sur- 

 veys ' for a Pacific railroad, ' volume IX.' In the descriptive 

 portion he introduced, as new genera Pooccetes (p. 447) and Pedi- 

 occetes (p. 625), but in the table of the higher groups, preceding 

 the descriptive portion, he used the names Pooecetes and Pedioe- 

 ■cetes, referring to the pages on which the genera were on following 

 pages described. 



It is known that Baird submitted partial proofs of his work to a 

 correspondent and had been informed that -caetes was not a legiti- 

 mate component, and that -oecetes should replace it. The assump- 

 tion that Baird thus submitted to has been maintained ever since. 

 For example, Mr. Elliot, in the October (1898) number of ' The 

 Auk,' has remarked (p. 295) that " neither could -n-eSiov and 

 oiKeVr;? be correctly compounded into Pedioccetes, two blunders in 

 one word." 



