Vol l90? VI ] Trotter, English Names of American Birds. 347 



array of names, some of them more or less familiar in the speech of 

 to-day. To William Bartram we owe a large number of our com- 

 mon bird names, names that reached the intellectual world of eigh- 

 teenth century England through the works of Edwards, Pennant 

 and Latham. Alexander Wilson was likewise a large debtor to 

 Bartram for the names of numerous species, but he blazed his 

 own trail by applying names to species discovered by himself as well 

 as in the recasting of many Bartramian names. 



In the present inquiry I have arranged the matter of the history 

 of our American bird names under the following six heads — 



I. Names of Old English origin applied to American Birds. 



II. Names derived from a Latin equivalent. 



III. Names suggested by voice. 



IV. Names suggested by some peculiar habit or habitat. 



V. Names suggested by color or other external feature. 



VI. Names suggested by geographical locality (place-names) 

 or in honor of some person. 



I. Names of Old English Origin. 



Many of the Catesbian names of birds undoubtedly originated in 

 the vernacular of the colonists and some are clearly of Old English 

 ancestry. In the main they are of generic rather than of specific 

 application, as is the case with most of the folk terms for natural 

 objects. The specific distinction is often one of locality merely, 

 as for example "the cuckow of Carolina." Relationship is often 

 broadly recognized by the people and embodied in a general name 

 with appropriate qualifications to indicate minor differences or 

 differences in distribution. The "species" of the profanum vulgus, 

 however, more nearly corresponds to the generic conception of the 

 naturalist, even in some cases to the idea embodied in the term 

 "family." 



A number of these Old World bird names, given to American 

 birds, appear very early in the history of English speech. In a 

 vocabulary compiled by Archbishop /Elfric toward the close of the 

 tenth century (955-1020 A. D.) there is a Nomina Avium in which 

 a number of bird names appear, though somewhat different from 

 their modern form. In this list the Robin Redbreast is called 



