110 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
there surely is no harm in leaving some obscure species and many geographical 
races without special English names. If they have no English names, and many 
species are almost unknown to the residents of the region where they abound, 
it is far better to wait for the name to come naturally, as it will if required. 
How much better it is to have an open field for a good, real name, a ‘‘pat name,”' 
as Mr. Seton calls it, than to have our literature burdened with these utterly 
useless, hopeless, and impossible names made up on the spur of the moment by 
writers, merely to fill out their books, or perhaps reluctantly admitted because 
some editor, who knows nothing of the case, insists that every animal have an 
English name. 
Common or English names are necessary for well-known species or groups of 
species. A few more might at present be useful for species-groups of such mam- 
mals as white-footed mice, meadow mice, wood rats, and others. Groups of 
forms known to hunters, trappers, naturalists in general, farmers and others, 
indeed most mammals that are commonly observed, or actually need them, 
already have good local names; if we but inquire among those familiar with the 
animals we may learn them and from them select good ones for use in print. Like 
the local names of birds, such names are sometimes used for different species in 
different localities. The pocket gopher is called salamander in Florida, where 
a tortoise is the gopher; and the spermophile is called gopher in parts of the 
West. This and other cases are as confusing as partridge and pheasant among 
bird names. In such cases it is perhaps best to persist in the use of a good book- 
name like pocket-gopher, spermophile, or ground-squirrel. If the name is a good 
one it may eventually win, just as ruffed grouse has become quite generally 
understood almost anywhere within the range of that species. 
The common names in use for most distinct species of well-known mammals 
may be modified by geographical or other pertinent adjectives if it is necessary 
to have special English names for closely related forms or subspecies. But just 
because a form is recognized by the specialist, and is given a technical name, 
does not make it necessary that it have, at once, an English or common name 
differing from that of some closely related form, a form perhaps impossible for 
anyone except the specialist to distinguish. Only the specialist needs names 
for these slight subspecies, and he has provided the technical names for his own 
use. 
Real, honest, actually-used local names should be collected, published, and 
made available. But let us stop coining absurd “book-names” for every small 
mammal we need to mention. And above all, let us cease to try to perpetuate 
or force into the language such names as listed above. They serve no purpose 
whatever, most of them stand no chance of survival, and it is perhaps actually 
harmful to use them in print. 
—N. H. 
