148 ON BIRDS NAMES. 



with. As an example of an excellent use of provincialisms 

 take the following pretty verse : 



" The sober laverock, warbling wide, 



Shall to the clouds aspire ; 

 The goudspink, music's gayest child, 



Shall sweetly join the choir; 

 The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, 



The mavis mild and mellow. 

 The robin, pensive Autumn cheer 



In all her locks of yellow." 



Now though four of the six birds here mentioned are 

 called by names not commonly met with in our manuals, 

 there is not a shadow of doubt as to the particular birds that 

 Burns meant. 



As to names misapplied, there is a case of mounted birds 

 in the exhibit of the Smithsonian Institution at the World's 

 Fair, that illustrates well the extent to which this evil has 

 been carried in one direction. This contains a number of 

 English and of American birds that are known by the same 

 name in their respective countries, though they are quite 

 different species. It is of course the Americans who are 

 guilty of adopting English names for their own birds ; and 

 the patriotism of our people, and their love of that language 

 and literature which is the precious inheritance of both 

 countries, must be appealed to, to mitigate the evil as much 

 as possible. 



Some of these names are now ineradicable. " Robin," 

 for instance, has come to stay, and will be applied both to the 

 English Warbler {Erythacus riibecula), and to the American 

 Thrush {Merula migratoria), to the end of time. But many 

 duplicate names can be avoided in speaking of American 

 birds. Such names as Goldfinch, Bee-bird, Tree Sparrow, 

 Blackbird, Ortolan, and Coot, are no better for the birds 

 often so called, than Yellow-bird, King-bird, Winter Chipp)', 

 Crackle, Sora, and Scoter ; and the first mentioned really 

 belong to European birds. 



