Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:12:44 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Pond snouts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I'm betting the Smith Island "pond snouts" are Hooded Mergansers. Just a guess. Can't find this name in some of the books on hand. Michael Harrison, who oversees the Glenn L. Martin N.W.R. on Smith I. and lives in Ewell, would know. Or, I suggest, Marty Cribb, show the people using this moniker a field guide. The problem with colloquial names, in spite of their charm and color, is that there are so many of them for the same species and that many of them are used interchangeably for several species. It's enough to make one warm to the standardization the A.O.U. Nomenclature Committee brings to the scene, in spite of such atrocities as Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow (why not just Saltmarsh Sparrow?). Here are some names for hoodies I DID find, several of which begin with "pond". 1. From "American Duck, Goose & Brant Shooting" by William Bruette (Scribner's, 1934): pond sheldrake, smew, moss-head, pheasant duck, water pheasant, hairy-head, round-crested robin, fan-crested duck, pickaxe sheldrake, little sheldrake, wood sheldrake, summer sheldrake, sawbill diver, spike-bill, pheasant, and cock robin. 2. From "The Ducks, Geese and Swans of North America" by Francis H. Kortright (American Wildlife Institute, 1943) [lists dozens of names, including many of the same ones in Bruette, but the following I find of interest]: pond fisher, pond sawbill, pond sheldrake, bastard teal, cottonhead, crow-duck, frog-duck, morning-glory, mud sheldrake, oyster duck, shagpoll, tadpole, wirecrown, and so on. 3. From "Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States" by Edward Howe Forbush, vol. 1 (Mass. Dept. of Agriculture, 1925): pond sheldrake, kokus sheldrake, hooded sheldrake, and other names, most of which are also listed in Bruette and Kortright. As I said in an earlier posting: "Them fish ducks, there's not much to eatin' one, but they're good to shoot at anyway. You get the Hairy Head or French Pheasant in the little sloughs and ditches, up the guts, the Sheldrake or regular Pheasant in the bays and ocean." "The Dictionary of American Bird Names" by Ernest A. Choate (Gambit, 1973) has a nice list of common and colloquial names in alphabetical order but does not list "snout" or "pond snout". Suddenly, there is a Marty Cribb who will be living on Smith Island until June and sending reports of birds to MDOSPREY?! Please say more about yourself, Marty, and do you realize you are living one of my greatest fantasies? Thanks for the reports so far.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119. 215-248-4120. 74077.3176@compuserve.com. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================