Books about bird names are not hard to come by. Some concentrate on colloquial or folk names, some on current English or vernacular names, perhaps delving into the linguistic derivations from Old or Middle English, Gaelic, Norn, Old French, or Mediterranean languages. Others within this genre cover the meanings and derivation of the scientific names. A few concentrate entirely on avian eponyms, ranging from a succinct paragraph to more in-depth biographical detail which could run to several pages. Here we have a tome that attempts to cover all aspects—and does so remarkably well.
Reedman has restricted himself to species that have occurred within the traditional Western Palearctic boundary (Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East), not the Greater Western Palearctic (which includes all of Arabia and Iran, and parts of Central Asia). This does not mean that there is little of American interest as Nearctic species that have occurred as vagrants are included, and of course, some Palearctic species that make the journey to North America will have familiar names. Moreover, the derivations are given for globally-used terms such as duck, goose, gull, tern, dove, finch, thrush, bunting, and so on, names often taken for granted that also have interesting stories. The author admits to drawing heavily on the works of W. B. Lockwood, James Jobling, and Ernest Choate, but makes the book his own by adding perceptive observations and comments about each bird family, subdivision, and species. His text is firmly aimed at British readers because his notes for British species are typically longer than for those birds that are resident elsewhere in the Western Palearctic or occurring only as vagrants or accidentals.
The main content covers species in taxonomic order (based on the International Ornithological Congress’ listing of nearly 1,100 species), each one dealt with name by name, English followed by scientific. Many of the vernacular names are self-evident (Blackcap [Sylvia atricapilla], Greenfinch [Chloris chloris], and Little Tern [Sternula albifrons]) and the specific part of the scientific name often reflects the vernacular. But for the majority, there are intriguing derivations to unravel: The neck feathers of breeding male Ruff (Calidris pugnax) are linked to the fashionably flamboyant ruffs of Elizabethan–Jacobean neck collars; “Flamingo” is derived from early Flemish traders (Flemings) who were conspicuous in the ports of Spain and Portugal because of their pink skins; “torquilla” of the Wryneck (Jynx torquilla) has a similar derivation to the mechanic’s twisting “torque” wrench; the genus Setophaga means “moth eater”; the hole-nesting Stock Dove (Columba oenas) takes its name from the Old English name for a tree trunk or stump (“stock” also being at the root of the word “stockade”). There is a species index but not a word index, so if you want to quickly investigate, for example, aquimp, goertae, immer, or razae, you will need to know the generic name as well.
It is perhaps not surprising that there are a few quibbles among the many hundreds of entries. For Purple Sandpiper (Calidris maritima), Reedman states that “Purple describes the general tone of the bird’s dark grey winter plumage, rather than a distinct colour” whereas it is surely named for the beautiful purple sheen on its back feathers (hence also the bird’s French name: Bécasseau violet). The explanation of “Bullfinch” is missing, and there are several discrepancies among the eponyms, for example, Vinous-throated Parrotbill (Suthora webbiana) is named for the British tea trader Edward Webb (1825–1906) not the botanist Philip Barker-Webb.
Concluding sections include a useful glossary of terms from genetics and taxonomy to jizz and birdwatchers’ jargon. It finishes with a “Who’s who? The names behind the birds.” For reasons of space, there is little about the people behind the eponyms in the species accounts and sadly the entries in this 28-page appendix usually just repeat the earlier one-line biography, rather too short to pique much interest. For example, “G.W. Steller (1709–1746). German naturalist and explorer” utterly fails to convey his heroic contribution to natural history, and “C.J. Temminck (1778–1858), was a Dutch ornithologist” tells us little about his influence on ornithology. Nevertheless, this section brings the eponymic characters together and adds other naturalists mentioned in the main text, particularly the authors of milestone publications that introduced certain bird names.
The frequent repetition of the American Ornithological Society (AOS) decision to eventually remove all eponyms from the English names of North American birds becomes a little irritating and could easily have been covered in a single statement in the introduction. Like many others, the author sympathizes with the AOS decision but does not agree with removing them all, commenting that, “Eponyms are so often significant markers in the very story of ornithology … It is manifestly obvious that history happened without our permission, but to eradicate it entirely from the story of bird names greatly impoverishes an important aspect of ornithology.”
While the author appreciates the struggle for standardization of bird names, seeing it as both commendable and desirable, he does not foresee an end to the eradication of all differences between North American usage and other English speakers: the obvious grey/gray, diver/loon, skua/jaeger dilemmas, as well as examples among the grebes and harriers, may never be resolved. Taxonomic changes are accelerating, and constant splitting will often require new or resurrected names. While the muddled division, naming, and re-naming of Mew Gull to Short-billed Gull (Larus brachyrhyncus) to separate it from Common Gull (Larus cana) shows that this is rarely an easy process, and committees can fail in their attempts to introduce nationally or internationally acceptable name changes, this one example has at least provided the book’s title. The obliteration of English eponyms for North American birds may well exacerbate the problem, increasing confusion, inconsistencies, and discontent, especially if other zoogeographical regions do not follow suit, either wholly or partially.
This is not a book to be read from cover to cover, but it would be a busy book lover who managed only one entry at a time, or indeed one page at a time. It is a well-researched reference for professional ornithologists, birders, and listers through to those with only a minor interest. However much one knows, there is bound to be something intriguing. Among other things, I never knew that “junco” was derived from the rush family Juncaceae (the largest genus being Juncus), nor that “kestrel” was derived from an old French word for a wooden bird-scaring rattle, nor that “gull” had Celtic roots and by its general replacement of “mew” (Old English for seagull) we have lost “a piece of linguistic history, older than the name of England itself.”
Book Review Editor: Jay Mager, [email protected]
