PREFACE 
T HE motive of this work is THE STANDARDIZATION OF 
COLORS AND COLOR NAMES. 
The terminology of Science, the Arts, and various In¬ 
dustries has been a most important factor in the development of 
their present high efficiency. Measurements, weights, mathemat¬ 
ical and chemical formulae, and terms which clearly designate 
practically every- variation of form and structure have long been 
standardized ; but the nomenclature of colors remains vague and, 
for practical purposes, meaningless, thereby seriously impeding 
progress in almost every branch of industry and research. 
Many works on the subject of color have been published, but 
most of them are purely technical, and pertain to the physics of 
color, the painter’s needs, or to some particular art or industry 
alone, or in other ways are unsuited for the use of the zoologist, 
the botanist, the pathologist, or the mineralogist; and the compar¬ 
atively few works on color intended specially for naturalists have 
all failed to meet the requirements, either because of an insufficient 
number of color samples, lack of names or other means of easy 
identification or designation, or faulty selection and classification 
of the colors chosen for illustration. More than twenty years ago 
the author of the present work attempted to supply the deficiency 
by the publication of a book* containing 186 samples of named 
*A | Nomenclature of Colors | for Naturalists, | and | Compendium of Useful 
Knowledge | for Ornithologists. | By | Robert Ridgway, | Curator, Department of 
Birds, United States National Museum. | With ten colored plates and seven plates | of 
outline illustrations. | Boston : | Little, Brown, and Company. | 1886. | (12mo., pp. 
129, pis. 17.) 
The subject of color and color nomenclature discussed on pages 15-58. Plates 
i-x, inclusive, represent 186 named colors, hand-painted (stencilled). 
