1920 1 Correspondence. 499 



Popular Nomenclature 



Editor of 'The Auk': 



The question of nomenclature has been so persistent recently here, 

 there and everywhere, that I trust you will pardon me for touching on 

 this controversial subject once again. It is not to the scientific names 

 that I wish to make reference, but to the popular ones. Mr. Ernest 

 Thompson Seton has recently expressed his views on this subject both in 

 the columns of 'The Auk' (April, 1919, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 229-235) and in 

 those of the 'Journal of Mammalogy' (Feb., 1920, Vol. I, pp. 104 & 105). 

 Since Mr. Seton draws a clear line of demarkation between the scientific 

 and the field student and presumably puts forth the views of the latter 

 in his articles, I trust you will also find the space for the views of a scien- 

 tific student. Not that I have ever before considered myself as such, for 

 the majority of my published papers have been on field work pure and 

 simple, but my views differ so fundamentally from those of Mr. Seton, 

 that I now think I must belong to the class he designates as scientific. 



Mr. Seton advocates a system by which popular names should be fixed 

 entirely by popular taste and sentiment. It is an excellent principle 

 but cannot be achieved, so it seems to me, if Mr. Seton's attitude be gen- 

 erally adopted. If a line must be drawn between the scientific and the 

 field student, and in these days such a line seems more artificial than 

 real, the problems of popular nomenclature can never be solved by an 

 antagonistic attitude, but by one of frank co-operation. If the rules of 

 priority, which have been carefully formulated by international experts 

 are to be ignored by those, be they field men or otherwise, who personally 

 disagree with them, a rational nomenclature, scientific or popular, can 

 never be arrived at. 



The reason I am re-opening the popular side of the question is this. 

 In the last issue of 'Country Life' (March, 1920) there are two illus- 

 trated articles on the Sparrow Hawk. The one is entitled "Falconry" 

 (pp. 68 & 69), the other merely the "Sparrow Hawk" (p. 156 et seq.). 

 Throughout the articles no other name than Sparrow Hawk is given to 

 the respective subjects, but on glancing at the photographs accompanying 

 them one notices at once that each is dealing with a completely different 

 bird. The first relates to the British Sparrow Hawk, Accipiter nisus, 

 the second to the American Sparrow Hawk, Falco sparverius. The 

 photographs are good and must be puzzling in the extreme to those gen- 

 iuses of language who are ignorant of the existence of countries other than 

 North America, whom Mr. Seton extols throughout his paper. 



How the little falcon known in this country as the Sparrow Hawk ever 

 came by this absurd misnomer is too late in the day to argue about. The 

 fact remains and must be faced. If Mr. Seton 's system is allowed to take 

 its course such muddles as this must continue indefinitely. As he rightly 

 contends the name is one now pleasing to and understood by the popular 



