14 TH A UCD US BOLND = BU bearer 
EEE 
have experienced no particular shift in meaning: duck, gull, heron, owl, 
plover, rail, sandpiper, wren, for example. On the other hand several dozen 
names are peculiarly American. These include a high proportion of the 
echoic words: chickadee, flicker, killdeer, pewee, towhee, whip-poor-will, 
among others. Numerous compounds arose here: bluebird, catbird, cow- 
bird, kingbird, mockingbird, longspur, road-runner, water-turkey. In fact, 
echoic and compound words account for all of America’s contribution, 
except for the tiny Indian element and except for the partial compound 
limpkin and vireo (for English greenlet). 
Where referents differ between England and America, the difference is 
often slight, as between Old World and New World coots, crows, kingfishers, 
snipe, teal, and woodcock. Occasionally, however, the meanings diverge 
widely. There are generic differences between flycatchers and vultures on 
either side of the ocean. Names of members of the family icteridae 
especially represent new uses of old words. The golden oriole of Europe is 
not a near relative of our orioles. European grackles are in the starling 
family, and in England blackbird and red-wing denote thrushes. In En- 
gland, water-thrush means ouzel or dipper, rather than a_ warbler. 
England’s warblers are in the kinglet family, stlviidae; our wood warblers 
are peculiar to the western hemisphere. 
The very paucity of native American materials in bird nomenclature is 
weighty evidence not only of birds’ widespread distribution, but also of the 
distances in time and space spanned by mankind’s insatiable interest 
in birds. 
ft ‘ak ff 
Goatsucker Ranges Overlap 
Did you know that there are places in southern Illinois where one may 
hear both the whip-poor-will and the chuck-will’s-widow calling at the same 
time? We had this experience June 8 in Franklin county, about 320 miles 
south of Chicago. Pausing along a narrow country road shortly after dark, 
we heard first the “chuck—wiLLS-WIDow” only a few yards out in a 
meadow to the left of the car. It called several times and then between its 
calls we heard more faintly the ‘“WHIP-poor-WILL, WHIP-poor-WILL” 
of his northern cousin in faster tempo coming from a patch of woods 
about 300 wards to the right of the car. We heard several more of each 
farther along the road. Returning a half hour later along the same route 
and at about the place where we had first heard the chuck-will’s-widow the 
car lights picked up a tiny reddish glow in the road ahead. Slowly we 
crept forward, stopping about two car lengths from a “chuck” clearly 
shown in the headlights, its eye glowing brightly. We examined it closely 
with our binoculars through the windshield until it leaped into the air for 
an insect. It lighted a bit farther away and when we tried to move closer 
again it flew off into the meadow. We have found whip-poor-wills on the 
road this way before, six in an evening drive, May 11, through Brown county, 
Indiana. The “whip” shows large areas of white as it leaps into the air, 
but our “chuck” showed only brown in the car lights. —J.B. 
