Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1867-09-28
THE EVENING STAR.
Natural INTERPRETATIONS Of Names,

MAMMAL NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. u N8mo0,
Rich as we are in various possessions, we
are In nothing more opulent than in names
for various familiar animals, such as fishes
birds, &c. 1t Is with this as with material
wealth-we would often be better off IL eur lot
were cast IN comparative poverty. Take, for
instance, our edible fishes. There Is scarcely
one kind that has the same name at any two
prominent points on our coast, while each par.
ticular appellatioE is made to do double and
triple duty. So that, when name is mentioned,
the residence Of the speaker or writer must be
referred to can be understood Instance q few
examples. The rock-fish OF the Chesapeake
waters is the str .prd.bass OF more eastern
localitls s-the rock fish Of New England being
totally different The sea-bass Of one place is
the black-b bass of another, and the black fish of
still another; the last mentioned namei being
elsewhere used Tor kind Of porpoise. The
perch, Is very different from the sun. fish of
the Coast, which may be either a huge broad
fen look ng as if the posterior half had been
cut away, or Ell, Q mas OF floating animated
Jelly. The blu: fish OF Atlantic City Ia called
weak.fsh in New York, shecutts on Long
Island, squete lgue in New England, and sea.
trout or trout in Philadelphia and Baltimore
The blue-f1sh OF New York is the tailor of
Phil ideIphia, the horse.mackerel of New
Jersey, the white fish OF the lower. H udson, the
skip Jack elsewhere. The king fish OF New
York is the hake OF New Jersey-the whiting
further South; while hake in New England
means kind of cod The tautay Of Massa.
chusetts is elsewhere called black fish and
nearing in the interior. The same fish is
called pike perch, pickerel and pike in the
west, and >almon in the SusQuehanna river
without being in the least like the speci.
properly so named. The fishermen in Florida
and Alabama will give glowing accounts of
me capture OF '.trout'' in the fresh waers Of
those States; but they are not the trout Of the
Southern coast, nor yet the front Of our Penn.
sylvania mountain streams, but of the same
character as the black bass of the West The
shad OF Lake Champlaiu is not the shad of the
coast, but the whitefish Of the great lakes
The herring of those lakes are not our herring
but, like the whitefsh, q member of the sal.
mon family. The subject might be pursued
indefinitely, but we have said enough to show
that every name is applied to several different
species and every species has many names.
With fishes, so with birds. The partridge
OF Pennsylvania is the quail of New England
and New York, and by no means the part.
ridge of t1e later re- ON, which is what we
call the phc ssant. an entire misuomer, in be-
ing very different rom the true phe Is mt Of
the Old World.
1t is lacSs like the Sc that yindic tie the pro.
priety OF the scientific nam; applied to tho e
and other objects of natural history by the m an
OF science. 1t is, of course, we'll In popular
discourses to avoid peda1tic reiteration of
Learned terms, but without the language of
science TO fall back upon Ps foundation, in
teihglble - all raturaiists, it would be totally
impo31ible 70 understand what is meant in
many cases. The condition Of things becomes
still more complicated when different coun.
tries are taken into account Popular works
of Natural History, written by the French,
and even l" lrned treatises, are usually quite
unlntelUgible, from their use OF vernacular
names aud reglect to connect with them, in
some way, those derived from the Latin and
Greek languages, and in current use by scien.
tifc men.-Philddelphid Ledger.