24 Bartramian Names in Ornithology. (January, 
Audubon, were never described, in any true sense, by Bartram, 
and would be undeterminable if their recognition depended on 
anything in Bartram’s work. We have in nearly every case only 
the name, which, being a characteristic one, is presumably refer- 
able to the species to which it was subsequently applied by Wil- 
son or Audubon, who were the first to give anything which, by 
any reasonable license, can be construed as a “description ” of the 
species in question. In most cases Wilson may have obtained the 
names directly from Bartram, since, as is well-known, William 
Bartram was not only the friend of Wilson, but his associate and 
instructor in natural history; and it is hardly presumable that 
Wilson did not know, through personal intercourse with Bartram, 
the birds the latter had named in his Travels. Besides this, the 
natural applicability of the names to the species in question may 
have rendered the names in a measure traditionally current. 
Other names which have not that happy suggestiveness, but 
which are in all other respects wholly parallel, figure promi- 
nently in the long list of Bartram’s species that Dr. Coues, with 
all his ability as an ornithological expert, has had to give as 
“ undetermined.” The specific name palustris, when applied to 
a Sparrow or a wren, may be distinctive when it happens that 
only one species of the group to which the species belongs affects 
marshy situations, but as soon asa second is found, the name of — 
course has then no distinctive value. Coincidences of this kind 
are all that make many of Bartram’s names determinable; and 
this merely chanced to be so, happening otherwise, however, in 
numerous instances, as witness the in other respects parallel cases 
of “ Falco pullarius, the chicken hawk,” “ F, gallinarius, the 
hen hawk,” “ Fringilla eanabina, the hemp bird,” “ Calandra 
pratensis, the May bird,” ete. Fourthly, the remarks above 
given under “ thirdly ” are also strictly applicable to nearly all 
of the Bartramian names newly set up by Dr. Coues, these 
being determinable only by negative evidence and not by any- 
thing inherent in Bartram’s work, — simply through a process 
of exclusion by virtue of a full knowledge of the avi-fauna of 
the region in question ; by knowing that they cannot well refer 
to anything else. For nearly or quite half a century after Bar- 
tram wrote, such a thing would have been impossible, simply 
from lack of this necessary knowledge of the fauna of the region 
to which Bartram’s work refers. 
1 In the case of Audubon, the single instance of the use of the same name may per 
haps be properly regarded as a coincidence. 
