20 



HOW TO KNOW BIRDS. 



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'S^^N (<?o5m\K. cR(ft5BiiL. cMiKii. Kiimm, 



Note the shape of the bill (see page 26). 



Naturally he who begins to study birds, having found one 

 new to him, desires first to know its name and to be able to 

 recof nize it at sight. This is the A B C of bird study, — the 

 mere beginning, -7- but nevertheless important. 



Bird Names. 



Whoever travels much will find that the names by which 

 certain birds are known to the people change as he passes from 

 place to place. The flicker has more than forty common 

 names in difl^erent localities. Some of the shore birds are 

 known by one name on one side of a sound or river, and by 

 another on the opposite shore. Bird names may change as 

 one goes from one township to another. Certain individuals 

 in a town may have one name for a bird, while other townsmen 

 know it by a different name. Uniformity of names is so 

 obviously a practical convenience that ornithologists try to 

 stabilize and simplify the study by giving to each species a 

 fixed cognomen derived from the Latin or Greek, by which it 

 may be known to all ornithologists in any country. Also in 

 the United States ornithologists have adopted a common name 

 for each American bird, by w^hich both ornithologists and the 

 people generally may know it in its native country. The 

 American Ornithologists' Union has established rules of no- 

 menclature for the purpose of fixing the technical names of 

 birds, and these rules have proved so efficacious that they have 

 been largely adopted by zoologists everywhere. If these tenets 



