NA TURE 



49 



THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1887. 



LOCAL NAMES OF BRITISH BIRDS. 

 Provincial Names and Folk-Lore of British Birds. By 



the Rev. Charles Swainson, M.A. Published for the 



English Dialect Society. (London, 1885 [«V]). 

 The Folk-Lore and Provincial Names of British Birds. 



By the Rev. Charles Swainson, M.A. Published for 



the Folk-Lore Society. (London, 1886.) 



INEPTITUDE for the performance of a literary task 

 has long been held by some publishers to be no bar to 

 a man's undertaking it ; but we believe that hitherto this 

 opinion has not been shared by publishing Societies. 

 These bodies may not always have been fortunate in the 

 selection of editors or authors ; but in a general way 

 it may be asserted that a grave mistake is seldom made. 

 Such a mistake, however, it is our unhappy lot now to 

 record, and it is the more marked in that it is common to 

 two of them — the English Dialect Society and the Folk- 

 Lore Society. Most of the publications of the former are 

 everywhere recognized as possessing high value — some 

 naturally are better than others ; but each of them has 

 reflected credit upon the Committee of that Society, 

 formed as it is of some of the best English scholars, and 

 its work has undeniably been of great use. With the 

 publications of the latter the present writer must avow 

 himself inadequately acquainted, though he is willing to 

 accord to them a reputation not inferior to that which 

 those of the sister Society enjoy. By what perverse fate, 

 then, these two Societies have combined to intrust a sub- 

 ject so exceedingly interesting, and of which it was pos- 

 sible to make so much, as the " Provincial Names and 

 Folk-Lore of British Birds," to a gentleman whose know- 

 ledge of it is obviously inadequate, is beyond the re- 

 viewer's power to explain. Perhaps it may be only one 

 of those well-known results of divided responsibility which 

 are almost invariably exhibited in statesmanship, general- 

 ship, and editorship. A more unsatisfactory work than 

 that of which the double title stands above has seldom 

 appeared on the counter of a careless publisher, and of 

 this fact the Committee of the English Dialect Society 

 seems, when too late, to have become aware ; since its. 

 thirteenth Report, read at the annual meeting on Febru- 

 ary 14 last, contains what cannot be looked upon as 

 otherwise than an apology for the course into which it 

 was led. Here we read — 



" Mr. Swainson's ' Provincial Names of British Birds ' 

 has been published in conjunction with the Folk-Lore 

 Society, at whose instance it was undertaken. . . . The 

 work is interesting, and the list of local names is the best 

 yet published ; but it is only right to point out that, in the 

 catalogue given by Mr. Swainson of the books which he 

 has consulted for the purposes of his compilation — about 

 one hundred in all — not a single publication of the Eng- 

 lish Dialect Society is mentioned. This means, of course, 

 that the words used in almost fifty counties or districts 

 have been entirely overlooked and neglected. Several 

 recent monographs on the ornithology of English coun- 

 ties, most of which contain the local names of the birds, 

 are also omitted from Mr. Swainson's list. ... It is 

 obvious, therefore, that the Dialect Society, whilst 

 acknowledging their indebtedness to Mr. Swainson for 

 the work he has done, can only regard it as a partial 

 Vol. XXXVI. — No. 916. 



and temporary treatment of the subject ; and they will 

 be pleased if they could induce Mr. .Swainson or some 

 other member to attempt the compilation of an exhaustive 

 and final hst of local bird-names." 



This free acknowledgement goes far to exonerate the 

 Committee from their offence, into committing which 

 they would seem to have been dragged by the Folk-Lore 

 Society. Whether the Council of the latter body has 

 expressed itself in any corresponding terms, the present 

 writer is not aware ; but that some explanation is due to 

 its members, if they are above caring for anything more 

 than a parcel of old wives' fables indifferently told, is very 

 clear. 



That the compiler of a successful list of provincia]" 

 names of birds should be somewhat of a philologist and 

 somewhat of an ornithologist would seem to be obvious. 

 There is little evidence to show that Mr. Charles Swain- 

 son is either one or the other, and a good deal to make 

 us suspect that he is neither. Moreover, we cannot free 

 ourselves from an uncomfortable thought that he has not 

 personally consulted some of the works he quotes, for he 

 certainly "makes hay" with their authors' names and 

 the titles of the books, while he is not above citing a 

 passage at second-hand from a popular author who may 

 or may not have correctly reproduced the original 

 passage — a passage that may or may not occur in any 

 very rare or recondite volume. Furthermore, besides the 

 omissions noticed in the Report just cited, there is a con- 

 siderable amount of material available which has been 

 wholly passed by. The earlier volumes of the Zoologist 

 contain several lists of the local names of birds that seem 

 to be unknown to him, and from those lists, and others 

 there collected, it was many years ago fondly hoped that 

 a gentleman — the Rev. J. C. Atkinson — who, by his later 

 labours, has proved his efficiency, would have compiled a 

 work having the same scope as that now before us. 



It does not appear to have occurred to Mr. Swainson 

 that a name has not only a locality, but a history, and 

 that, though information concerning the locality in which 

 it is used is very desirable, information concerning its 

 history is more important still. In regard to the former, 

 what he tells us is generally little enough ; and in regard to 

 the latter, what he tells us is generally nothing at all. More 

 than this, the source of such information on either subject 

 as he does vouchsafe is very rarely indicated — still more 

 rarely than is done by M. Rolland, whose " Faune 

 Populaire de France " (a very good book in its way, but 

 one capable of great improvement) is confessedly the 

 model which the work before us tries to copy. 



To take thefirst species in Mr. Swainson's list (p. 1), which 

 species, by the way, he calls by the corruptly abbreviated 

 name " Missel Thrush." He writes of " the fondness of 

 this bird for the berries of the mistletoe, holly, and holm." 

 If he had looked at the careful " Dictionary of Plant- 

 Names " of Messrs. Britten and Holland (published by 

 this same English Dialect Society), or almost any British 

 Flora, he might have seen that holly and holm are 

 synonyms, instead of being, as he would have them, the 

 names of different trees. He also tells us that among the 

 names which this bird has received, from the harsh note it 

 utters when alarmed, is that of " Screech " ; but he gives 

 not a hint to connect that word with its undoubted parent 

 form, the Anglo-Saxon Scric, which is rendered turdus in 



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