Black Snowbird. — Junco liy emails — as a 
cage bird? Mr. A. B. Bailey of Cobalt, 
Conn., caught one some time last Febru- 
ary, and it lived until the middle of Au- 
gust — said it would eat meal. He is at the 
Bank every few days and I enquire after 
the bird each time. Quite a long time for 
a bird to live here in a cage, as they breed 
so much farther North — Jno. II. Sage, 
Portland Conn. ^ __ 
O.&O, Vm.F«b.t883.p./*: 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
[ Correspondents are requested to write brie Ay and to the point. No attention will 
be paid to anonymous communications .] 
To the Editors of The Auk: — ■ 
Sirs: I see by the last number of ‘The Auk’ that the Committee on 
Nomenclature is undecided whether to adopt the name ‘Junco’ or ‘Snow- 
bird’ as the vernacular name of Junco h iema lis. The bird in question is 
here, and in many other parts of its range, not a ‘Snowbird’ at all,, as 
it almost invariably leaves for the South before there is any snow, and 
does not return till the ground is completely clear. I think this should 
be sufficient to decide the question in favor of ‘Junco,’ as in my opinion 
a bird should always bear a name which is applicable to it in every part 
of its range. 
The same argument applies with equal or still greater force to the name 
‘Winter Wren.’ Anorthura troglodytes hyemalis spends the summer in 
the hills near here, but is never found here during the cold weather; and 
people here have frequently remarked on the absurdity of our having to 
call an essentially summer bird the ‘Winter Wren.’ It may be urged 
that we have no choice in the matter, as there is no other name for the 
bird; but why cannot some descriptive name, such as ‘Short-tailed Wren,’ 
be invented. Many will doubtless say that the old name is too well 
established to admit of its removal ; but the Committee has, I under- 
stand, in some instances made changes even more radical than this, and 
on no stronger ground; and it does seem a pity, when a thorough and 
final revision of the nomenclature is in progress, to allow a misnomer 
like ‘Winter Wren’ to stand. For surely a name must be considered a 
misnomer which is inapplicable in a bird’s summer home — the place 
where by far the most important part of its life’s drama is enacted. 
Ottawa, November 19, 1884. W. L. Scott 
Auk, 2, Jan., 1885. p. // // . 
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