From a Westerner's Standpoint 



THE Editor of Bird-Lore is quite right in saying that the American 

 Ornithologists' Union Committee has in the past shown excellent judg- 

 ment in the selection of English names for our birds. Such changes 

 as appear desirable have become so through a slightly altered point of view, 

 or through greater familiarity with the birds themselves, rather than any dis- 

 crediting of previous decisions. 



We of the West find ourselves handicapped in a measure by the constant 

 recurrence of the adjective Western, but so long as we are in the minority we 

 must make the best of it; and precisely because the vernacular names are more 

 stable than the scientific, we recognize the necessity of making them geographi- 

 cally definitive. All we ask is that they shall be accurate in this regard. In 

 general there should be a freer use of the word 'Pacific' in designating species 

 common to the three sister states, California, Oregon and Washington, unless 

 it can be clearly shown, as in the case of the California Cuckoo, that the bird 

 has its center of abundance in one of them, The 'Oregon' Vesper Sparrow 

 {Poacetes gramineus ajfinis) is just as truly a Washington bird. Moreover, 

 the Western Vesper Sparrow (P. g. confinis) probably outnumbers ajjinis two 

 to one in Oregon. Would it not be better, therefore, to call affinis the Pacific 

 Vesper Sparrow? 



We stand in need of an accepted faunal name to designate that homogeneous 

 area which includes eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho west of the Rockies, 

 and southern British Columbia. Commercially we refer to this region as the 

 'inland empire'; and there has been talk of a political coalition under the name 

 Lincoln or Lincolnia, but for geographico-zoological purposes the word Colum- 

 bian is perhaps the most suitable. It has been applied successfully in the case 

 of the Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse. It should be extended to such birds 

 as the 'San Diego' Redwing (Agelaius phceniceus neutralis) and the 'Dusky' 

 Horned Lark (Otocoris alpestris merrilli). The name Columbian is also more 

 consistently applicable to the western 'colony' of Pants atricapillus than to 

 Parus hudsonicus columbianus, as at present. 



Of course all distinctive geographical names must tend to fall away in local 

 use. The Western Robin is simply the Robin to us in Washington; the Puget 

 Sound Bush-Tit is the Bush-Tit, etc. We ought perhaps, to give this abbreviat- 

 ing tendency a little larger recognition in our check-list. Or, if we do 'consider 

 it necessary to repeat the word American some thirty-three times in the text, 

 for the sake of distinctness, we should feel free to dispense with it in common 

 use, as in the columns of Bird-Lore; and we ought not to allow ourselves to 

 be cheated out of the use of such fitting titles as Widgeon or Peregrine Falcon 

 in the mere effort to be different. 'Baldpate' is simply a book name for the 

 Widgeon, in the West, at least; while 'Duck Hawk' degrades our noblest Falcon. 



Personally, I think the custom of naming our Warblers after their favorite 



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