134 PROBLEMS OF BIRD LIFE. 



divide a species, all the divisions are subspecies. But out of 

 respect for the man who first discovered the bird, it is cus- 

 tomary to reserve for the subspecies which he described the 

 name that he gave it, so that the form first described always 

 holds first place on the list and has but two words in its 

 Latin name, while the other races follow usually in the order 

 of discovery, with three-word names. It usually happens, 

 as the East was settled first, that the Eastern birds were 

 described first and stand at the head of the list of divisions 

 of species. Sometimes the reverse is the case. The bronzed 

 grackle, the crow blackbird of New England, is a subspecies of 

 the more Western crow blackbird, the purple grackle. Every- 

 body knew the bird, but until recently no one had noticed that 

 the gloss of its feathers was unlike that of the more abundant 

 and earlier described purple grackle. When this was observed, 

 the northeastern bird was marked off as a new subspecies, 

 because the birds first described, the " type specimens," were 

 of the other sort. 



Perhaps we see now why the Latin name is a help to the 

 naturalist, and how it is that the same bird will look and 

 act differently in various parts of the country. 



Indeed, it is much easier to see why there should be sub- 

 species than to decide to which subspecies a bird belongs. 

 But that is the work of the scientist ; all that is important 

 for us to know is why he separates a species into smaller 

 groups, and what a three-word Latin name indicates. 



