September, 1919] 



The Canadian Field-Naturalist 



59 



these birds to the agriculturist is greater 'than that 

 of any other group whose economic status has thus 

 far been investigated' . . . The great bulk of 

 the food of Sparrows consists of seed, fruit, and 

 insects. The native Sparrows destroy very little 

 grain, great quantities of weed seeds and insects, 

 and hardly any cultivated fruit; they are, therefore, 

 almost entirely harmless. They frequent grass 



fields, cultivated fields, and gardens, and m some 

 cases orchards; thus their good work is done where 

 it is of great benefit to the farmer." 



In addition to these facts, it may be noted that 

 many of the Sparrows and Finches are excellent 

 songsters, and a number of them are among our 

 beautiful and brightly-colored native birds. The 

 popular prejudice against "Sparrows" which has 

 resulted from the harm wrought by the imported 

 English Sparrow, or House Sparrow, should not 

 be allowed to prevent proper protection to our use- 

 ful, attractive native Sparrows. Such occurrences 

 as the above-related sale of Snow Buntmgs for food 

 show that these birds need protection, and it does 

 not appear why it should be withheld from them 

 while it is very properly granted to such economic- 

 ally neutral birds as guillemots and petrels. 



Another feature of the convention which seems 

 to be capable of improvement is the nomenclature, 

 which one would expect to find unusually accurate 

 and correct in such a Treaty. The "migratory 

 game birds" are correctly designated by the scien- 

 tific names of the families included, followed by 

 the general English names commonly applied to the 

 members of each family, as, for example, "Anatidae 

 or waterfowl, including brant, wild ducks, geese 

 and swans." "Migratory insectivorous birds" is, 

 however, stated to mean the following: "Bobolinks, 

 catbirds, chickadees, cuckoos, flickers, flycatchers, 

 grosbeaks, humming birds, kinglets, martins, me.id- 

 owlarks, nighthawks or bull bats, nuthatches, orioles, 

 robins, shrikes, swallows, swifts, tanagers, titmice, 

 thrushes, vireos, warblers, waxwings, whippoorwills, 

 woodpeckers and wrens, and all other perching 



birds which feed entirely or chiefly on insects." 

 "Migratory non-game birds" is defined by a sim- 

 ilar list of popular English names. The undesirable 

 inexactness and repetition in such a list are too 

 evident to require comment, while its only system 

 appears to be the alphabetical one. The actual 

 working of the Treaty is hindered by such inex- 

 actness, for if, in a given region, the popular name 

 of a bird, which it is intended to protect, is not 

 one of those included in the above list, the people 

 of that region will have difficulty in understanding 

 that the Treaty applies to that bird, and the local 

 judicial authorities may even rule that it is not 

 protected there. "Wild geese" are protected in 

 Quebec by the provincial law, but Canada Geese 

 are commonly known in that province as "Out- 

 ardes," and the provincial authorities have decided 

 that they are not protected in Quebec by the law 

 protecting "wild geese," and that they will not be 

 protected by that law until the term "Outardes" is 

 added to the names of the birds so protected. It 

 seems evident that too great care cannot be ex- 

 ercised in naming the birds to be granted protection 

 by the Migratory Birds Convention, or any other 

 similar document. 



There are many things in favor of naming such 

 protected birds species by species, giving in each 

 case the scientific name, followed by all the known 

 popular names used in the area of protection. Such 

 a system of naming would give accuracy and easy 

 popular recognition, which are both highly desir- 

 able. It might result in quite a long list, but is 

 there any objection to that? Failing such a system, 

 should not all the birds protected by the Migra- 

 tory Birds Convention be accurately and systemat- 

 ically named by families, at least, as are the "migra- 

 tory game birds?" It is to be hoped that the efforts 

 of all those in Canada and the United States to 

 whom birds are of value will be joined together to 

 secure the amendments necessary to enable the 

 convention to perform to the best advantage all the 

 work which it ought to perform. 



