7 2 General Notes. Y]^ 



the frequency of tlieir use being indicated by the order in vvhicli they 

 are here written. Forehead is a common everyday word in constant 

 use ; fore-neck is in less frequent employ and is a more special tei^m, while 

 hind neck is comparatively infrequent; but in modern descriptive nat- 

 ural history writing, where all are in frequent use, the tendency is to 

 give all the same forin, writing each phrase as a single word without the 

 hyphen. In the same way we have, in the same class of descriptive writ- 

 ing, ' toothrow,' ' underparts,' and ' upperparts,' although the dictionaries 

 treat each as either two separate words, or as requiring the hyphen. It 

 is thus the users of w^ords and not the dictionary makers, with their fixed 

 rules based on ' language-principles,' that determine the form of much- 

 used compound words. When 'general usage' has established the form 

 of a word, contrary to the ruling of our ' standard authorities,' they later 

 usually fall in line, as shown abundantly by the history of many com- 

 mon word-forms. 



In the case of bird names (and other animal and plant names as well), it 

 is more common to blend an adjective and a novm, as in bluebird, than 

 two nouns as in nighthawk; and in the treatment of both these classes 

 of words, our ' standard authorities,' the dictionaries, are more or less 

 inconsistent, for the reason just stated. For example, ' flycatcher' is 

 almost universally written without a hyphen, while 'gnatcatcher ' and 

 ' oystercatcher ' are almost as uniformly written with a hyphen. In the 

 Check-List, and almost universallj', except in the dictionaries and in 

 English publications, we have Barn Owl, Orchard Oriole, and Marsh 

 Hawk, instead of Barn-Owl, Orchard-Oriole, and Marsh-Hawk, etc. In 

 the Check-List, we have Meadowlark and Nighthawk, on the ground that 

 in the one case the bird is not a lark and in the other, is not a hawk; and 

 the name in each case is written solid as one word for the purpose of indi- 

 cating the fact by making a new name. 



The rule requiring the compounding and hyphenizing of such bird 

 names as Ivory Gull, Herring Gull, Wood Duck, Night Heron, Clapper 

 Rail, Stilt Sandpiper, Mountain Plover, Passenger Pigeon, Wood Ibis, 

 Song Sparrow, Cliff Swallow, Tree Creeper, etc., is a purely arbitrary, 

 dictionary ' language principle,' so long as Gray Gull, Green Heron, 

 Brown Creeper, Painted Bunting, Varied Thrush, and all similar biid 

 names are treated by the same ' language-principles' as composed of two 

 separate words. The practical inconvenience of enforcing the dictionary 

 rules in such cases is considerable, since in indexes, in looking for Ivory 

 Gull, Herring Gull, and similarly with other names, we would find our 

 gulls scattered under half-a-dozen different lettei-s of the alphabet, and 

 our pigeons, sparrows, pewees, warblers, etc., similarly dispersed. In 

 the case of the Ivory Gull, ivory is just as much a descriptive adjective 

 as gray, or black-backed, referring to its color (inaccurately of course), 

 and not indicating that it is made of ivory or has anything to do^\ilh 

 ivory. ' Water-Thrush ' is thus written in the Check-List especiallA to 

 indicate that it is not a thrush, and ' Qiiail-Dove to indicate a group of 



