I also think these stories and histories can bring us, in an indirect way, a bit closer to the birds -- or, at least, how some people once saw them them. What stood out about those encounters with the birds? What was well-understood? Misunderstood?
For instance, Wilson thought the bird that we'd come to call Wilson's Warbler was a flycatcher. He also named the bird with a descriptive: Green Black-capt Flycatcher, which is a bit closer to the name used in Mexico, where the bird overwinters. It was only later that it became his warbler. The same goes for the Snipe, which he just calls Snipe, and which everyone knew existed (since they hunted Snipes and knew they were different than the similar Woodcock) before he described them and gave them a scientific name.
Even before the AOS' announcement, I was thinking a bit about bird names. I'm writing a book about Eastern Whip-poor-wills in US culture. (Look for the book way in the future, circa 2025-2026, but please do look for it.) The first chapter I wrote was on the species' English name. The name is actually a sentence, though it's easy to forget this, which commands the whipping of Will. A strange command to know the bird by, but the bird's English name nonetheless. There are poems and children's stories that reference this about the bird -- using the Whip-poor-will's name and call as an opportunity to teach people (often children) to obey authority figures (usually parents) or risk the lash. Of course, Whip-poor-wills have no interest in how we punish each other, but they were -- through their name -- drawn into the violence of our world. (As were Chuck-will's-widows and, for a time, Black-whiskered Vireos, who were known as Whip-Tom-Kelly.) Before I started work on this book, I mainly spent my non-birding time researching, writing, and teaching on the history of torture. So I'm not particularly fond of a name that carries that history, but I'm also entranced by how iconic the species, their call, and, so, their name are. Personally, I admire the more evocative Spanish name (Cuerporruin) or the more descriptive French name (Bois-pourri), both of which are also said to echo the bird's call.
A previous poster (apologies, I'm forgetting who), recommended Mrs. Moreau's Warbler as a potential source for those stories. I'll add to it Susan Myers' The Bird Name Book, which is a bit more like an encyclopedia of English bird names than Mrs. Moreau's Warbler. A rather different source is J. Drew Lanham's poem on bird names in Sparrow Envy. It opens with the lines, "As a taxonomic committee of one / I alone have decided."
The Birds of the World database can also provide insight into the history of bird names. Just click the encircled "i" next to the bird's scientific name or the names link (near the top of the bird's main profile page) to read about common names in other languages.
In the case of the Say's Phoebe, it tells us that Bonaparte got naming rights in 1825. You can read Bonaparte's account here. Among other things, we learn that the bird that Titian Peale shot in Pueblo had an active nest, with two young birds about to fledge. The Say's Flycatcher may also have been discovered and described previously, but by the rules of the naming game, those earlier efforts weren't valid.
For a rather odd story, chase a MacGilvray's Warbler -- which is actually named after two different people: MacGilvray and an ornithologist named Tomlie. Audubon and Townsend are responsible for the mix-up, and I'm not yet sure what MacGilvray and Tolmie had to do with the species or why Audubon's selection (MacGilvray) superseded Townsend's (Tomlie, who Townsend also recognized in the scientific name: Geothlypis tolmiei.)
- Jared Del Rosso
Centennial, CO
On Tuesday, November 7, 2023 at 7:07:50 PM UTC-7 Leon Bright wrote:
COBirders-- My friend Mark Yaeger, Colorado's pre-imminent bird artist and life-time Pueblo resident, sent me the email below. I believe it fits the guideline our moderator has established and I think many will find it of interest.
Leon Bright – Pueblo
Charles Wilson Peale the founder of the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts and the Philadelphia Museum said this in 1799:
"There is also another unmeaning custom which is still essential for us to get rid of. I mean that of naming subjects of nature, after persons, who have plumed themselves with those childish ideas of being the first discoverers of such thing." He went on to say naming birds after people should be avoided because it "feeds the vanity of some naturalists without enlightening the science".
Peale named his children after artists: Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Angelica Kauffman, Sophonisba Angusciola and Titian. It was son Titian who in 1820 shot the Say's Phoebe near Pueblo that got named after his boss Thomas Say on the Edwin James expedition.
Mark Yaeger
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