If we pretend that the name of that species is “Tyrant Flycatcher,” as our scientists once insisted, our popular knowledge of the bird would disappear and with that all popular interest in it.
Another example, “Bronzed Grackle.” For a hundred years, the scientists have been trying to force the people into believing that Bronzed Grackle was the English name of the bird, and have met with the unanswerable response of dumb silence; readers of the scientific bird books use the name, but the public do not. Everywhere to the farm boys the “Bronzed Grackle” is simply a “Big Blackbird.” This is descriptive but far from satisfactory. Scores of times I have handed out this name “Bronzed Grackle” to inquiring boys, to find that it never reached their consciousness as a name; it had no appeal to ear or memory; it was hard to say; it was not backed by the genius of the language. I doubt if the word “Bronzed” ever could be; its really acceptable English representative is “Copper”; but the bird doesn’t look coppery to ordinary view; and the word “Grackle” is impossible, hard to say, meaningless, not striking any familiar chord in the memory.
“Blackbird” is the popular name. But a local genius in the northwest, a boy with instincts and eyes to see, described it and named it as a “Fantail Blackbird.” Here was a real English name, descriptive, acceptable; and instantly it was a success. Everyone who heard it once remembered the name and remembered the bird.
Perhaps the best illustration of all is the name of the common American Robin. The scientists scolded the colonists fiercely for calling it a “Robin.” It was not a “Robin,” they maintained, it was a Thrush of the Merula section of the family; and they refused to use, print or sanction any English name for the bird except “Migratory Thrush.” After a century of irascible attack, which was received in silent, ponderous apathy, the scientists were beaten. The cause of English triumphed and today actually even the scientific lists give the bird as the “American Robin,” by which name it is known to every child in America, and loved because it is known.
For a hundred years, scientists had been trying to make us believe that Rice Troupial, Yellow-bellied Woodpecker, Carolina Nightjar, Virginia Goatsucker, Black-throated Bunting, Vociferous Plover, Golden-winged Woodpecker, Virginia Quail, Polyglot Thrush, Ferrugineous Thrush and Black-capped Titmouse, were the English names of certain American birds; but the genius of the language was unconquerable, and at last it is admitted by the defeated scientists that the trivial names (as they called them) of these birds are really Bobolink, Sapsucker, Whippoorwill, Nighthawk, Dickcissel, Killdeer, Flicker, Bobwhite, Mockingbird, Thrasher and Chickadee; and with that admission public interest in these particular birds takes on a great and enduring growth.
A similar struggle is now going on between the Black-billed Cuckoo vs. Rain Crow, Snowflake vs. Snow Bird, Passenger Pigeon vs. Wild Pigeon, Goldfinch vs. Wild Canary, Junco vs. Slaty Snowbird or Tip, Cardinal vs. Redbird, Sand Martin vs. Bank Swallow, Spotted Sandpiper vs. Tip-up or Peetweet, Barred Owl vs. Hoot Owl, Virginia Horned Owl vs. Cat Owl, Acadian Owl vs. Saw-whet, Carolina Rail vs. Sora, Phalarope vs. Sea Goose, Vulture vs. Turkey-Buzzard, Pectoral Sandpiper vs. Jack Snipe, Gallinule vs. Mud Hen, Osprey vs. Fish Hawk, Peregrine Falcon vs. Duck Hawk, American Kestrel vs. Sparrowhawk.
A few names such as Bluebird, Crossbill, Chat, Wagtail, Sandpiper, etc., have long been such a success that one knows instinctively that they did not originate with the scientists.
Such clumsy names as White-throated Sparrow, Black-and-White Warbler, Red-shouldered Hawk, are, of course, not names at all, but cumbrous descriptions and doomed to failure, while absurd pedantries like Pileolated Warbler, Protonotary Warbler, Plumbeous Gnatcatcher, are worthy of the afore-mentioned pedants of the Jacobean classical epoch.
Names like Blackburnian Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Clay-colored Sparrow, Townsend’s Solitaire, are utterly impossible. They are clumsy, meaningless, un-English and detrimental. I was showing the first of these birds to a group of lively children and said it was called Blackburnian Warbler. A bright boy, speaking wiser than he knew, said, “If it was ‘Flaming Warbler’ I’d remember it.” ‘Nashville Warbler’ is, of course, utterly misleading. We are told that the “Nashville” is a mere fortuitous word added for distinction. Then I say drop it as soon as possible, since it is no more a Nashville Warbler than it is a Virginia or Minnesota Warbler; while the word “Warbler” itself is open to grave suspicion. I wonder the clumsiness of “Clay-colored Sparrow” has not put it out long ago. I suppose the reason is it never was in.
Take the name “Western Grebe.” Of course, it isn’t a Western Grebe any more than several others; and, viewed from some standpoints, it is an Eastern Grebe, a Southern Grebe, a Northern Grebe, a Northeastern Grebe, a South-southwestern Grebe, or any other compass point you like to give it. But what popular ear, tongue, or imagination is ready to seize on such a name?