Friday, October the 22nd, 2004
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“The vicious habit of giving birds bad names is one that grows, and you never know when the scientific have come to a finality. For instance, little Robin Red-Breast has successively lived through three tags, Turdus migratorius, Planesticus migratorius, and Turdus canadensis. If he had not been an especially plucky little beggar he would have died under the libels long ago. For my own part I cannot conceive how a man with good red blood in his veins could look a chirky little robin in the eye and call him to his face a Planesticus migratorius, when as chubby youngster he had known the bird and loved him as Robin Red-Breast. One is inclined to ask with suspicion, ‘Is naming a lost art?’” — Agnes Deans Cameron, The New North : Being Some Account Of A Woman's Journey Through Canada To The Arctic