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 Mar., 1909 DISTRIBUTION AND MOLT OF THE MEARNS QUAIL 43 In the stage reached by number 4 the primaries have quite completed their growth. Figure 2 shows a male in juvenal plumage (number 1), a male in second win- ter plumage (number 2), a female in juvenal plumage (with some first winter feathers appearing on the upper breast, however) (number 3) and a female in sec- ond winter plumage (number 4). Dr. Dwight, in a paper on the molt of the North American Telraonidce (Auk XVII, 1900, p. 50), speaks of the young of this species as being alike in the juvenal plumage, and resembling the adult female. All the young males I secured have the crissum, flanks, and lower abdomen, dull black (a mark surprisingly con- spicuous as the birds take flight), while the middle of the breast is rusty brown, a foreshadowing of the brilliant markings to appear later; while the young females (and adults also) have these same parts white or pinkish. This species seems to be late with its breeding. The young of Lophorlyx ambeli, L. californcus vail/cola, and Oreorlyx pictus plumzferus, living under very similar conditions, have, by the end of September as a rule, fully acquired their first winter plumage, while I have secured young of Cyrtonyx m. mearnsi the first week in November which had hardly begun the post-juvenal molt. It is pos- sible that the heavy summer rains that occur in the regions inhabited by this species destroy many of the earlier sets of eggs, thus forcing the birds to bring out their young later, but the same reasoning would apply to other species not so conspicu- ously dilatory. University of California. THE POPULAR NAMES OF BIRDS By JONATHAN DWIGHT, JR., M. D. OPULAR or vernacular names are of two sorts--those very local in their use and those approved by standard authorities for general use wherever the language is spoken. The standard for North American Birds, for over twenty years, has been the A.' O. U. Check-List which has as a matter of fact rec- ognized the most widely used local names and only supplied others when no popu- ular name was in vogue. Of late years unfortunately its authority has been im- paired by a few radicals who have beeneagitating certain "reforms", and under the circumstances it may be well to weigh these claims which do not seem to rest on a very solid foundation. There is no immunity to the germs of fads, and their virulence is attested by every new fashion, every new cult, every new world-language, every new breakfast food that periodically flourishes and claims its victims; and just as some visionaries seek to improve on the natural development of dogs or horses by clipping of ears and docking of tails, so, in much the same spirit, others clip and dock words in the attempt to reform spelling or improve grammar. Today some of our apostles of vernacular reform wish to throw away the pos- sessive case for the popular names of birds and beasts and substitute the so-called adjectival form;--they would have us say "Audubon Warbler," "Anna Humming- bird," "Wilson Thrush," "Merriam Elk," and so on, dropping the time-honored apostrophe and the "s." Tomorrow, perhaps, it may please them to drop "need- less" syllables and thereby attain such agreeable results as Bar Owl, Belt King-