The Spelling of Common Names of Birds

Abstract

THE still-uncompleted work of providing correct scientific names for the birds of North America has been a task requiring such close attention that taxonomists and special committees may be excused for neglecting to develop a standard and authoritative orthography for the common names. Lack of system in this matter, however, has long been an annoyance if not a serious handicap to all who have had anything to do with publications in which the common names of birds are used, whether they be research workers, compilers, popular writers, editors or proofreaders. The present writers, as editors in different scientific branches of the Federal Government that issue publications on birds,-one in the Bureau of Biological Survey, the other in the United States National Museum,find it difficult to be consistently uniform in spelling the common names of birds without memorizing arbitrarily set forms or endlessly consulting reference works. Two difficulties are at once confronted: (1) if the present A. 0. U. Check-list is followed as authority, the inconsistencies therein are perpetuated; and (2) if the dictionary is followed it is found that the inconsistencies there are as glaring as those in the Check-list. The independent writer is free to disregard both the Check-list and the dictionary if he so desires, but not so the Government editor because uniformity is desired in the spelling of common names of birds in Government publications, not only those of the Biological Survey and the National Museum but also those of the National Park Service, the National Zoological Park, the Forest Service, the Soil Conservation Service and the Bureau of Animal Industry. Among others that make occasional use of these names are: the State Department (in treaties), the Treasury Department (in customs regulations), the Federal Archives and the Department of Justice (in regulations enforcing bird-protective laws), the Bureau of American Ethnology (in miscellaneous Americana) and the Office of Education (in handbooks for teachers and others). No one of these could insist that the Public Printer follow its individual preference or even the A. 0. U. Check-list so long as the dictionary (Webster) is followed for the sake of uniformity throughout the Government service. Under authority of law the Public Printer has directed that all writers and editors in the various departments and independent establishments be governed by 'Webster's Dictionary,' unless an exceptionFhas been made and published in the 'Style Manual' of the Government Printing Office. The result is that in Government publications bird names frequently are not spelled in the same way as they are in 'The Auk' and in other orni-