how the canada jay lost its name and why it matters ob v35#1 ap 2017.pdf · ica”, the american...

2 Ontario Birds April 2017

How the Canada Jay lost its name and why it mattersDan Strickland

IntroductionIn 1957, with the publication of its fifth“Check-list of the Birds of North Amer-ica”, the American Ornithologists’ Union(AOU) did away with “Canada Jay”, thename it had used for Perisoreus canaden-sis until 1910, and for the nominate sub-species, P. c. canadensis, during the subse-quent 47 years. English names were dis-continued for all subspecies in Check-list5 (AOU 1957) and, in the case of P.canadensis, a new English species namewas declared, namely “Gray Jay”. The tax-onomic and nomenclatural decisions ofthe AOU are held in such respect thatNorth American journal editors, orni -thologists and birders almost alwaysaccept them and assume that they areinvariably made for compelling biologi-cal reasons. Gray Jay researchers such asRyan Norris of the University of Guelphand I are good examples because,although we have studied the ecology andbehaviour of Gray Jays for a combinedtotal of over 60 years, and have alwayscalled them by that name, we never once

questioned why the original name,“Canada Jay”, was deemed inappropriate.

This would still be the case were it notfor the Royal Canadian GeographicalSociety’s (RCGS) well-publicized 2015-16 campaign to choose a national bird forCanada (Anon. 2015). While both of ussupported the Gray Jay nomination, wefelt the name, with its American spellingof “gray” instead of the Canadian “grey”was inappropriate for a Canadian nation-al symbol. We noted that the RCGS hadpresented P. canadensis in their campaignas “Gray Jay/Whiskeyjack”, thus ack -nowledging the country-wide use of thecolloquial name derived from the CreeWisakedjak that entered English as“Whisker-jack” as early as 1740 (Gosselin2017). However, we lamented that theyhad not also included “Canada Jay”, theoriginal official name. After all, it, too,clearly had unassailable historical legiti-macy and was obviously appropriate asthe name for a Canadian national bird.We also thought, if the RCGS had

Volume 35 Number 1 3

chosen to present P. canadensis under itsoriginal official English name, it wouldhave received much more support than itactually did (it finished third in the “pop-ular vote” behind the Common Loon(Gavia immer) and the Snowy Owl (Buboscandiacus)). Thus, when, at the end ofthe campaign, the RCGS neverthelesschose the Gray Jay as its choice to beCanada’s national bird (Walker 2016), wetook it as self-evident there would havebeen more public acceptance if the choicehad been announced as the “Canada Jay”.

It was in this context that we foundourselves increasingly asked by the public

and media why the AOU had abandonedthe historic name, “Canada Jay”, back in1957. Personal circumstances allowed meto attempt finding an answer to this ques-tion and I report my findings here.

MethodsConsultationI first contacted several of the presentmembers of the AOU’s Nom en clatureand Classification Committee (NACC)to determine whether any of them knewthe thinking behind the im position of“Gray Jay”. I then consulted relevant pop-ular and academic literature from the

A colour-banded population of P. canadensis has been under continuous study in Ontario's AlgonquinProvincial Park since the 1960s. Photo by Dan Strickland


1940s and 1950s, the official history ofthe AOU (Sterling and Ainley 2016) andanother, unofficial history of Americanornithology (Barrow 1998). Finally, inApril and August of 2016, I examined theAOU’s archives housed in the Smithson-ian Institution in Washington, D.C.

AnalysisAfter finding serious contemporary criti-cism of the AOU’s pre-1957 vernacularnaming system, I converted Check-list 4(AOU 1931) to a spreadsheet format tofacilitate a more quantitative evaluationof its problems. In particular, I asked towhat extent the vernacular naming systemmirrored the Latin system which permits,even for someone with no ornithologicalknowledge, the certain identification of abird at both the species level (binomialname structure, e.g., Larus argentatus)and the subspecies level (trinomial namestructure in which the binomial speciesname is embedded, e.g. Larus argentatussmithsonicus). I more loosely defined anEnglish “binomial” as consisting of a sin-gle-word category name (e.g., Sparrow,Quail-dove) modified by a specific “qual-ifier” that usually consisted of one word(e.g., “Fox” [Sparrow]) but which mightalso be a two-word geographic reference(e.g., “Key West” [Quail-dove]). English“trinomials” (i.e., subspecies) correspond-ingly consisted of a binomial modified bya subspecific qualifier that could also con-sist of one or more words (e.g., WarnerMountains [Fox Sparrow]).

ResultsGeneralNone of the present members of theNACC that I consulted had any knowl-edge of the choice of “Gray Jay” in 1957,and the official and unofficial ornitho-logical histories I consulted were disap-pointingly silent about the deficiencies ofthe English nomenclatural system usedbefore 1957. Most of the insights offeredin this paper came from a few key pub-lished articles from the 1940s, the AOU’sown published Check-lists and Supple-ments and unpublished archival materialfrom the 1940s and 1950s. The latter(excerpts cited here in italics within quo-tation marks) was contained in Smith-sonian Institution Archives RecordRU7150, Boxes 3 to 7, 38, 39, 43 to 49and 58. I have retained photocopies of allthe original archival material cited hereand they are available upon request.

History of the names “Canada Jay” and “Gray Jay”“Canada Jay” was used as the species’English name for P. canadensis at least asearly as Swainson and Richardson (1831)and Audubon (1840-44). It was also soused by the AOU (Table 1) in its Check-lists 1 and 2 (AOU 1886, 1895) but“demoted” to meaning merely the nomi-nate subspecies, P. c. canadensis in Check-lists 3 and 4 (AOU 1910, 1931) before itsfailure to reappear in the Check-list 5(AOU 1957).

“Gray Jay” was first used by RobertRidgway (1899) of the Smithsonian Insti-tution as the English name for a new sub-species (Perisoreus obscurus griseus) of the“Oregon Jay”, Perisoreus obscurus which, at the time, was deemed to be a different


species, separate from P. canadensis. Aswith “Canada Jay”, the specific name“Oregon Jay” was downgraded in the1910 and 1931 Check-lists to meanmerely the nominate subspecies (i.e., P. o.obscurus). The names “Gray Jay” and“Oregon Jay” continued to be the Englishdesignations for the two subspecies of P.obscurus up until 1944 when the AOUlumped P. obscurus with P. canadensis.This lumping had no effect on the AOU’smeaning of “Canada Jay” which desig-nated a subspecies of P. canadensis beforethe lump and designated exactly the sameafter the lump. For the next 13 years,right up until publication of Check-list 5,the Canada Jay, the Gray Jay, the OregonJay and several other named taxa coexist-ed as mere subspecies of P. canadensis.

The AOU’s conventions of vernacularnomenclature 1910-1957The AOU’s failure to provide overall Eng-lish species names for the two Perisoreusspecies in its 1910 and 1931 Check-listswas in no way unique. For all monotypicspecies (i.e., species with no subspecies;389 of 798 species on the 1931 list; 49%of the total), the AOU provided bothLatin binomials and English names butfor the 409 polytypic species (i.e., specieswith at least two subspecies; 51% of thetotal) such as P. canadensis, it gave neither.Instead, it presented Latin trinomials andEnglish vernacular names for each of the1020 subspecies comprising the polytyp-ic species.

Mated pairs of P. canadensis occupy large permanent territories in Canada's boreal and subalpine forests.Photo by Dan Strickland


Check-lists 1 and 2 Check-lists 3 and 4 (AOU 1886, 1895) (AOU 1910, 1931)

Perisoreus canadensis (No species-level scientific name) Canada Jay (No species-level common name)

(NO NOMINATE SUBSPECIES) Perisoreus canadensis canadensis (NO NOMINATE SUBSPECIES) Canada Jay

Perisoreus canadensis capitalis Perisoreus canadensis capitalis Rocky Mountain Jay Rocky Mountain Jay

Perisoreus canadensis fumifrons Perisoreus canadensis fumifrons Alaskan Jay Alaska Jay

Perisoreus canadensis nigricapillus Perisoreus canadensis nigricapillus Labrador Jay Labrador Jay (not on the 1931 list)

Perisoreus obscurus (No species-level scientific name) Oregon Jay (No species-level common name)

Perisoreus obscurus obscurus Oregon Jay

Perisoreus obscurus griseus Gray Jay

Table 1. History of AOU’s nomenclatural treatmentof “Canada Jay” and “Gray Jay”

The ultimate Canadian bird? A femaleincubating in a late winter snowstorm.Her three eggs hatched a few dayslater. Photo by Dan Strickland

P. canadensis is quick to takeadvantage of novel sources of foodthat can supplement its winter foodstores. Photo by Gord Belyea


1931 List modified by Supplements 19, 20, 24 and 27 Proposed for Check-list 5 Check-list 5

(AOU 1944, 1945, 1949, 1952) 1947-48 (AOU 1957)

(No species-level scientific name) Perisoreus canadensis Perisoreus canadensis (No species-level common name) Gray Jay Gray Jay

Perisoreus canadensis canadensis Perisoreus canadensis canadensis Perisoreus canadensis canadensis Canada Jay Canada Gray Jay

Perisoreus canadensis capitalis Perisoreus canadensis capitalis Perisoreus canadensis capitalis Rocky Mountain Jay Rocky Mountain Gray Jay

P. c. fumifrons pacificus (1952)1 Perisoreus canadensis fumifrons Perisoreus canadensis pacificus Alaska Jay Alaska Gray Jay

Perisoreus canadensis nigricapillus Perisoreus canadensis nigricapillus Perisoreus canadensis nigricapillus Labrador Jay (restored to list 1944) Labrador Gray Jay

Perisoreus canadensis albescens Perisoreus canadensis albescens Perisoreus canadensis albescens Alberta Jay (1944) Alberta Gray Jay

Perisoreus canadensis obscurus Perisoreus canadensis obscurus Perisoreus canadensis obscurus Oregon Jay (1944) Oregon Gray Jay

Perisoreus canadensis griseus Perisoreus canadensis griseus Perisoreus canadensis griseus Gray Jay (1944) Ridgway's (Cascades) Gray Jay5

Perisoreus canadensis bicolor Perisoreus canadensis bicolor Perisoreus canadensis bicolorIdaho Jay (1944) Idaho Gray Jay

Perisoreus canadensis barbouri Perisoreus canadensis barbouri Perisoreus canadensis barbouriAnticosti Jay (1944) Anticosti Gray Jay

P. c. pacificus arcus (1952)2, 3 Perisoreus canadensis pacificus Perisoreus canadensis arcusPacific Canada Jay (1945) Pacific Gray Jay

Perisoreus canadensis sanfordi Perisoreus canadensis sanfordiNewfoundland Gray Jay (1949)4

1 P. c. fumifrons became P. c. pacificus with the 27th Supplement (AOU 1952) because of a naming priority issue.2 P. c. pacificus named in the 20th Supplement (AOU 1945) was renamed P. c. arcus in the 27th Supplement (AOU 1952) because P. c. pacificus was preoccupied (see above).

3 Note that when P. c. pacificus was proposed in 1945, it received the English subspecies name Pacific Canada Jay, clearly implying that the presumptive English species name was "Canada Jay" (see text).

4When P. c. sanfordi was proposed in the 14th Supplement (AOU 1949) it was given the English name "Newfoundland Gray Jay", thus signalling the AOU's otherwise unannounced intention to elevate "Gray Jay" to the status of overall English species name (see text).

5 To avoid having a subspecies with the English name "Gray Gray Jay", it was first proposed that P. c. griseusbe renamed "Ridgway's Gray Jay". This was later changed to "Cascades Gray Jay".


This vernacular naming system had several serious drawbacks including:1. It was impossible to determine, from

the English name alone, whether thename referred to a species or to a sub-species. Latin species names are invari-ably binomials and subspecies namesare trinomials but the English nameson Check-list 4, whether of species orsubspecies, could be trinomials, bino-mials, or even “uninomials”. For exam-ple, 26 English uninomials (e.g., Oven-bird, Bobolink) on the 1931 listreferred to monotypic species and 12were the names of subspecies (e.g.,Osprey, Whimbrel). Similarly, 338binomials were the names of species (allmonotypic, e.g., Western Meadowlark,Canada Warbler) and 659 (66%)referred to subspecies (e.g., EasternMeadowlark, Nashville Warbler). Of374 trinomials 349 (93%) referred tosubspecies (e.g. Gray–crowned RosyFinch, American Three-toed Wood-pecker) but 25 referred to monotypicspecies (e.g., Cassin’s Purple Finch,McKay’s Snow Bunting), and it wasimpossible to realize this from theirname structures alone.

2. A further deficiency of the English tri-nomials on the 1931 list was that thebinomials they contained did notalways refer to the same species. Of 100different binomials contained withinEnglish trinomials, nine referred to twodifferent species. For example, the Cal-ifornia Clapper Rail and the YumaClapper Rail were races of Rallus obso-letus, while four other “Clapper Rails”on the 1931 Check-list were races ofRallus longirostris.

3. The failure of Check-list 4 to give over-all species names for the 409 polytypicspecies it contained was trivial for Latinnames since the provided trinomialsubspecies names always included thebinomial species names as their firsttwo elements (genus and species). Onthe vernacular side, however, there wereonly 91 polytypic species (22% of thetotal) whose subspecies all had Englishtrinomial names containing a possibleoverall English name for the species(e.g., the three then-recognized races ofCanachites canadensis; HudsonianSpruce Grouse, Canada Spruce Grouse,and Alaska Spruce Grouse). A further19 species (5%) had at least some sub-species with similarly helpful Englishnames (e.g., the races of Brantacanadensis on the 1931 list were: Com-mon Canada Goose, White-cheekedCanada Goose and Lesser CanadaGoose, as well as the uninformativeHutchin’s Goose and Cackling Goose).

This left 299 species (73% of poly-typic species and 37% of the entire 1931list) that had neither an overall Englishspecies name or even a single subspecieswith a trinomial name containing a bino-mial that could be construed as a speciesname. It was, therefore, literally impossi-ble to refer to any of these species with anAOU-sanctioned overall English namefor the 47 years from 1910 to 1957. P. canadensis was one of those species.

I found two approaches to writingabout P. canadensis that were taken byauthors of the day. Bent (1946) followedthe AOU’s lead and made no mention ofthe species at all, writing separatelyinstead about several of its subspecies,


including the Canada Jay (P. c. canaden-sis) and the Gray Jay (P. c. griseus). In con-trast, Roger Tory Peterson broke fromAOU orthodoxy by using “Canada Jay”in both his eastern and western fieldguides (Peterson 1941, 1947) to meanboth the nominate subspecies, P. cana -densis canadensis, and the overall species,P. canadensis. He similarly used “OregonJay” in his western guide to mean boththe overall species, P. obscurus, and itsnominate subspecies (Peterson 1941).

Pressure on the AOU to reform its naming systemsComplaints about the AOU’s vernacularnaming system and appeals for its over-haul came from several quarters in the1940s. In their popular bird identifica-tion field guides, both Peterson (1941,1947) and Pough (1946) addressed theconfusion surrounding vernacularnomenclature and both correspondedwith Alexander Wetmore, chairman ofthe AOU’s NACC, urging reforms. Inappendices on “Subspecies”, Petersonused the “Steller’s Jay” in his westernguide (Peterson 1941) and later the“Canada Jay” in his eastern guide (Peter-son 1947) as examples to illustrate hisfrustration with the lack of overall Eng-lish species names for polytypic speciesand the impossibility of knowing fromtheir vernacular names to which speciesmany subspecies belonged. He also laud-ed the introduction of a rational namingsystem by Alden H. Miller in “The Dis-tribution of the Birds of California”(Grinnell and Miller 1944). Miller’sapproach was to imitate the scientificnaming system by using English trinomi-als for all subspecies and having the

species name nested within the trinomi-al. Thus, for P. canadensis, Miller restoredthe original overall species name, “Cana-da Jay” and for the two alleged racesoccurring in California (referred to by theAOU as the “Oregon Jay” [P. c. obscurus]and the “Gray Jay” [P. c. griseus]), he used“Southwestern Canada Jay” and “GrayCanada Jay”, respectively.

Further important pressure for reformcame from a Wilson Bulletin paper whoselead author was Eugene Eisenmann, pres-ident of New York’s influential LinnaeanSociety (Eisenmann and Poor 1946). Init, the authors set out the problems of theexisting vernacular nomenclatural systemand proposed that two main principlesshould guide its reform, namely: “1. Every species should have a name, appli-cable only to that species, which can be usedin a comprehensive manner for all races ofthe species…” and “2. Every subspecies name should be formedby prefixing to the species name a word orwords indicating the race.”

"Canada Jay" was the AOU's official name forPerisoreus canadensis on its first two Check-lists(1886 and 1895). Photo by Dan Strickland


They also stated that “it is certainly desir-able to retain many established namesregardless of whether or not they are appro-priate…” but urged the observance ofadditional naming principles when a newname had to be found. One of these wasthat “a species name should not be formedfrom the name of a geographical or politi-cal subdivision”, the reason being that thiscould lead to geographically awkwardsubspecies names.

The AOU’s response to the calls for reformThe AOU, in general, was apparentlysym pathetic to the reformers’ wishes. Ina 1939 memorandum entitled “Recom-mendations of the A.O.U. to its Commit-tee on Classification and Nomenclature ofNorth American Birds”, the AOU specifi-cally recommended that “editions of theChecklist should appear every 10 years” andthat (in the next edition) “there be a sci-entific name, a vernacular name, and astatement of range for each species as awhole, …”. They also added the sugges-tion that “vernacular names for subspeciesare unnecessary.”

Notwithstanding this clear direction,the minutes of a subsequent Check-listCommittee meeting held in Boston on10 September 1940 recorded that: “Asuggestion by A.H. Miller in a letter regard-ing abandoning subspecific vernacularnames was unanimously voted down. Allpresent felt it was necessary and desirable tocontinue common names for subspecies.”The same minutes also noted “The sug-gestion that each subspecific vernacularname include the vernacular name of thespecies (ex. Louis iana Carolina Paroquet)was voted down.”

Wetmore eventually yielded to thepressure by agreeing to support a radicaloverhaul of vernacular names followingthe principles advocated by Eisenmannand Poor (1946) in anticipation of thenext (5th) AOU Check-list. His archivedcorrespondence records his appreciationfor the leading role played by W.L. McA-tee of Chicago in preparing two exhaus-tive lists of proposed new vernacularspecies and subspecies names. The first,covering non-passerines, was presented atmeetings of the Check-list Committeeheld in Toronto in September 1947 andthe second, covering passerines, was cir-culated by mail in June 1948 in anticipa-tion of a fall meeting in Omaha later thatyear. Wetmore graciously acknowledgedthat the proposed names he was then cir-culating closely followed the principles(that he had previously resisted) advocat-ed by Eisenmann and Poor (1946) and,before them, by Grinnell and Miller(1944). Still, even then, Wetmore hadserious misgivings about the new scheme.In the preface to the 1947 list, heremarked: “Whether this demand (i.e., foroverall species names and for subspeciesnames that contain those species names)is genuine and necessary, or whether it isbased on the idea of a few vocal individu-als has been difficult for your Chairman todetermine.” A few lines later, he wrote,“The list as presented shows some of thebenefits as well as the various horrors ofsuch a plan.”

The new overall vernacular speciesname (Gray Jay) and reformed subspeciesnames for P. canadensis that were pro-posed in 1948 for inclusion in Check-list5 are shown in Table 1. These proposed names (and those of all other species on


the 1947 and 1948 lists) were initially cir-culated to Check-list Committee mem-bers for their comments. Proposed draftaccounts as they would appear in Check-list 5 were then drawn up and circulatedto at least 40 North American ornitholo-gists including four based in Canada (I.McTaggart Cowan and J.A. Munro inBritish Columbia, W. Earl Godfrey at theNational Museum in Ottawa and L.L.Snyder at the Royal Ontario Museum).The only comment returned to Wetmoreexpressing reticence concerning the choiceof “Gray Jay” as the overall species namefor P. canadensis was a hand-written mar-ginal notation on Snyder’s copy saying:“‘Whiskeyjack’ is used universally in thenorth (& will continue to be). Its use withnames of political areas (such as Idaho)would avoid awkward term and avoid anew coinage.”

Snyder did not express an opinionabout “Canada Jay” but his commentindicates he recognized a need to avoidgeographic awkwardness. While I foundno other discussion of the subject, Ibelieve the AOU’s decision to choose“Gray Jay” as the overall species namerather than restoring “Canada Jay” isindeed most plausibly attributed to thatconcern. Since the new vernacular schemerequired that the overall species name beincluded in all vernacular subspeciesnames, the choice of “Canada Jay” as thespecies name would have resulted in geo-graphically awkward subspecies namessuch as “Alaska Canada Jay”, “OregonCanada Jay”, and “Idaho Canada Jay”.Even “Labrador Canada Jay” would havebeen less than ideal since, in the late1940s, Labrador’s borders and status werestill contested and Newfoundland had notyet joined Canada. Previous proponentsof a rationalized vernacular nom enclat ural

The confiding Whiskyjack is beloved by Canadians from coast to coast. Photo by Gord Belyea.


system had cautioned against names thatgave rise to geographical absurdities suchas “California Florida Jay” (Eisenmannand Poor 1946) or “Florida CarolinaWren” (Peterson 1947) and I suggest thatthis concern also motivated the AOU’srejection of “Canada Jay” and preferencefor “Gray Jay” instead.

I further suggest, incidentally, that“Canada Goose” was not likewise reject-ed as a restored overall vernacular speciesname for Branta canadensis because noneof its English subspecies names (listedabove) contained geographic qualifiersthat would have led to similar difficul-ties. “Canada Warbler” (the only otherver na cular name on the 1931 Check-listthat included “Canada”) was not affect-ed by the proposed nomenclaturalreforms since it already referred to a(monotypic) species, Wilsonia canaden-sis, not to a subspecies.

The dénouement Minutes of the 7 September 1947 Com-mittee meeting in Toronto record thatthose present were specifically enjoinedto keep the new scheme and the list ofnames secret since “to publicize the mat-ter now would lead to much useless andburdensome correspondence”. As far as I am aware, the AOU made no publicannouncement of the impendingchanges in nomenclature, let alone onthe specific case of P. canadensis, beforethe actual publication of the Check-list’sfifth edition in 1957, a year in which itsjournal, the Auk, even published a notethat still used “Canada Jay” (Law rence1957). Nevertheless, clues were availablewell before 1957 that nomenclaturalchanges were afoot. In 1945, the AOU

announced the alleged existence of a newsubspecies P. c. pacificus (later P. c. arcus;see footnote #2 in Table 1) for which itgave the English name “Pacific CanadaJay” (AOU 1945). Four years later, how-ever, the AOU accepted another sub-species, P. c. sanfordi, this time with theEnglish name of “Newfoundland GrayJay” (AOU 1949), hinting at a switch inallegiance from “Canada Jay” to “GrayJay” as an implied overall vernacularspecies name. Reference by the AOU toan east-coast race as a “Gray Jay” shouldhave raised eyebrows since, at the time,that name still officially designated onlyP. c. griseus, a race of the far west (Cas-cades and B.C. coastal mountains). Aneven stronger clue that a new order wasimminent came with the publication of“Birds of Washington State” (Jewett et al.1953). The authors (two of whom, Jew-ett and Aldrich, were among the 40receiving advance copies of the draftCheck-list 5) explicitly gave “Gray Jay” asan overall species name for P. canadensis(something that, according to the AOU,had ceased to exist after Check-list 3replaced Check-list 2). They also gave“Oregon Gray Jay” for P. c. obscurus, and“Cascade Gray Jay” for P. c. griseus.

To my knowledge, this was the firstand only time that any of the new ver-nacular names for the subspecies P. canadensis proposed in 1948 (Table 1)were ever published. The original plan topresent the entire freshly overhauled ver-nacular naming system in the Check-list’sfifth edition came to a dead-stop at aSeptember 1954 meeting of the renamed“Committee on Classification andNomenclature of North American Birds”held in Madison, WI. Discussion of the


“controversial” subject of common names stretched over two days, during whichmore and more of the committee expres -sed waning enthusiasm for retainingcommon names for subspecies.

The minutes, possibly betraying acertain 11th hour exasperation, end with:“Amadon expressed as his opinion, thatthose who believe common names will bemissed by amateurs are laboring under adelusion. Van Tyne believed that we shouldassume leadership rather than merely goalong with the desires of what may be aminority. Both Lincoln and Miller com-mented on the time spent in past meetingsin our efforts to decide on suitable nameswhile Wetmore referred to the confusionthat will be caused by designating somespecies by a name that was formerly con-fined to a subspecies. To bring the questionto a head Miller moved for the deletion ofsub-specific common names. This was sec-onded by Friedmann, and carried withone dissenting vote.”

Recall that in 1940, the same (AldenH.) Miller had urged exactly the samething (abandonment of subspecific ver-nacular names) but was turned downunanimously by the then committee (ofwhich three members, including Wet-more, were still members in 1954). Inthe space of 14 years, the committee hadgone from strongly favouring a system inwhich only subspecies had commonnames to the exact opposite (only specieswere to have common names).

This complete reversal of namingphilosophy had an important implica-tion. I argue that the motivation for ele-vating “Gray Jay” from obscurity insteadof restoring “Canada Jay” to its originalstatus as the long-standing overall species

name was to avoid geographical awk-wardness in the reformed English sub-species names. But this justification forchoosing “Gray Jay” instead of restoringthe original “Canada Jay” as the overallspecies name evaporated with the deci-sion not to have vernacular subspeciesnames. There could be no awkwardnessin subspecies names after the 1954 deci-sion because there were simply not goingto be any subspecies names.

The committee also recognized thisand the minutes of their annual meetinga year later (24 October 1955, Cam-bridge, MA) included the followingagenda item and comment: “Commonnames to be used in the Fifth Edition.Decision to abandon subspecific vernacu-lar names, makes it possible to retain asspecific names a number that have beenlong in use.”

I found no further discussion of pos-sible abandonments of the new namesproposed in 1947-48 but I did discover18 cases where the names actually pub-lished in 1957 (Check-list 5) were notthe proposed names, but reversions tothe real or implied names on Check-list4 (AOU 1931). Examples of ultimatelyrejected proposed names include “Chest-nut-backed Bluebird”, “Pileolated War-bler”, “Grass Wren” and “Chestnut-crowned Warbler”. They reverted to,respectively, “Western Bluebird”, “Wil-son’s Warbler”, “Short-billed MarshWren” and “Nash ville Warbler”. There isno reason apparent to me why the pro-posed “Gray Jay” could not have similar-ly reverted to the original “Canada Jay”.


DiscussionOne early hypothesis to explain theAOU’s 1957 imposition of “Gray Jay”was that it resulted from the lumping ofP. canadensis and P. obscurus. This wassuperficially plausible because the twospecies were widely believed to have theEnglish names, “Canada Jay”, and “Ore-gon Jay” and the AOU later adopted aguideline (AOU 1983), suggesting that,when two taxa with different Englishnames are lumped, a new name should befound for the merged taxon. But thehypothesis is false because, as summa-rized in Table 1, the two species, P.canadensis and P. obscurus, did not haveEnglish names during the period (1910-1957) when they were lumped (1944). Asfor “Canada Jay”, “Oregon Jay”, and“Gray Jay”, those names referred, not tospecies, but to subspecies. Contrary towidespread perception, therefore, theCanada Jay and the Oregon Jay (both justsubspecies) were not lumped in 1944 andthe name “Gray Jay” did not come intoexistence at that time. All three namesdesignated subspecies before the 1944lumping of their “parent” species andthey continued as such for another 13years afterwards. Indeed, the only realnomenclatural effect of the 1944 eventwas that the scientific names of the Ore-gon Jay and the Gray Jay changed, respec-tively, from P. obscurus obscurus to P. canadensis obscurus and from P. obscu-rus griseus to P. canadensis griseus.

There is no doubt, however, that in1957, the AOU chose the name “GrayJay” to designate the overall species, P. canadensis, and the question is why itdid not follow the more obvious courseof restoring the much older and well

established “Canada Jay” instead. TheAOU archival material and the contem-porary literature I have examined indicatethat the decision not to restore “CanadaJay” resulted from an honest attempt toreform the previously chaotic vernacularnaming system and in particular to avoidgeographic awkwardness in the commonnames of subspecies. But this possiblereason for abandoning “Canada Jay” andimposing “Gray Jay” in its place abrupt-ly disappeared when, in 1954, the AOUgave up on the whole idea of vernacularsubspecies names.

I would argue further that, even if theAOU had decided to retain vernacularsubspecies names in Check-list 5 (AOU1957), there would still be grounds tochallenge its decision to abandon “Cana-da Jay”. The original stricture of Eisen-mann and Poor (1946) to avoid geo-graphic qualifiers in species names wasspecifically intended to apply to newspecies names and not to result in theabandonment of traditional, well-estab-lished names. Moreover, there are twoways, not just one, to avoid awkwardnesswhen geographic subspecific and specificqualifiers clash in the bosom of single tri-nomial (e.g., “Alaska Canada Jay”). Theway chosen in the AOU’s still-born pro-posals of 1947 and 1948 was to abandonthe older specific qualifier (“Canada”)and keep the often much younger sub-specific qualifiers (e.g., “Idaho, Oregon,Newfoundland”, etc.). But the AOUcould just as easily have chosen to keep“Canada” and abandon the subspecificqualifiers, as Miller did in his pioneeringattempts to reform the AOU’s nomen-clatural system (Grinnell and Miller1944). Faced with the two California


perisoreus subspecies, Gray Jay and Ore-gon Jay, Miller “trinomialized” theirnames as the “Cascade Canada Jay” andthe “Southwestern Canada Jay”, in thelatter case avoiding the geographic awk-wardness of what otherwise would havebeen the “Oregon Canada Jay”.

Overall, I conclude that there was novalid taxonomic or nomenclatural reasonfor the AOU to impose “Gray Jay” as theoverall English species name in 1957 orto refrain from restoring the original andhistorically far more authentic “CanadaJay”. Further, while the history of theCanada Jay/Gray Jay name change maybe of particular interest to ornithologists,I suggest it should matter to the widercommunity as well. At the present time,just before Canada’s 150th birthday, thefederal government may be consideringwhether to endorse the Royal CanadianGeographical Society’s choice of P. cana -densis as our national bird. Of course, asa sovereign nation, Canada does not needto seek approval from any outside bodyfor its decisions on what to call itsnational symbols. It has even less reasonto ask for permission to restore the orig-inal official English name—and least ofall from the unelected foreign-dominat-ed body that, through error, caused thename to be “lost” in the first place. But,given the traditional automatic accept-ance of the AOU’s taxonomic andnomenclatural decisions, the federal gov-ernment might well assume that “Can -ada Jay” was abandoned in 1957 forsound biological reasons that it dare notcontravene.

On the contrary, since the facts rel -ated here show otherwise, if the Canadi-an Government should now see fit to

endorse the Royal Canadian Geographi-cal Society’s choice of P. canadensis asCanada’s national bird, it will be inno-cent of any biological or nomenclaturalheresy and perfectly within its rightsshould it, at the same time, declare thename of our new national symbol to be,once again, “Canada Jay”.

AcknowledgementsFor his encouragement and helpful com-ments on an earlier draft, I am very gratefulto my collaborator, Ryan Norris. I also wishto thank Ron Tozer and Scott Bastian forinvaluable bibliographic assistance and ananonymous reviewer for useful suggestions toimprove this paper. Terry Chesser, Carla Cic-ero and Carla Dove graciously facilitated myaccess to the AOU archives at the Smithson-ian Institution and archivist Ellen Alers pro-vided superb service during my two visits inApril and August of 2016.

Literature CitedAnonymous. 2015. The national bird proj-ect. Canadian Geographic 135:41-45 (January-February).

AOU. 1886. The Code of Nomenclature andCheck-List of North American Birds. Ameri-can Ornithologists’ Union, New York. 392 pp.

AOU. 1895. Check-List of North AmericanBirds. Second and Revised Edition. AmericanOrnithologists’ Union, New York. 372 pp.

AOU. 1910. Check-List of North AmericanBirds. Third Edition (Revised). AmericanOrnithologists’ Union, New York. 430 pp.

AOU. 1931. Check-List of North AmericanBirds. Fourth Edition. American Ornitholo-gists’ Union, New York. 526 pp.

AOU. 1944. Nineteenth Supplement to theAmerican Ornithologists’ Union Check-List of North American Birds. Auk 61:441-464.


AOU. 1945. Twentieth Supplement to theAmerican Ornithologists’ Union Check-Listof North American Birds. Auk 62:436-449.

AOU. 1949. Twenty-fourth Supplement tothe American Ornithologists’ Union Check-List of North American Birds. Auk 66: 281-285.

AOU. 1952. Twenty-seventh Supplement tothe American Ornithologists’ Union Check-List of North American Birds. Auk 69: 308-312.

AOU. 1957. Check-list of North AmericanBirds. Fifth Edition. American Ornithologists’Union, New York. 691 pp.

AOU. 1983. Check-list of North AmericanBirds. Sixth Edition. American Ornithologists’Union, New York, 877 pp.

Audubon, J.J. 1840-1844. The Birds ofAmerica. Vol. 4. Dover publications, 1967,New York.

Barrow, M.V., Jr. 1998. A Passion for Birds:American Ornithology after Audubon. Prince-ton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey336 pp.

Bent, A.C. 1946. Life Histories of NorthAmerican Jays, Crows and Titmice. UnitedStates National Museum Bulletin 191. U.S. Government Printing Office., Washington D.C. 495 pp. + 68 plates.

Eisenmann, E. and H.H. Poor. 1946. Suggested Principles for Vernacular Nomen-clature. Wilson Bulletin 58:210-215.

Gosselin, M. 2017. Wisakedjak, l’emma-gasineur. QuébecOiseaux, Printemps 2017, p. 15.

Grinnell, J. and A.H. Miller. 1944. The Distribution of the Birds of California.Pacific Coast Avifauna No. 27. Museum ofVertebrate Zoology of the University of California, Cooper Ornithological Club, Berkeley, California. 608 pp.

Jewett, S.G., W.P. Taylor, W.T. Shaw andJ.W. Aldrich. 1953. Birds of WashingtonState. University of Washington Press,Seattle. 767 pp.

Lawrence, L. de K. 1957. Displacementsinging in a Canada Jay (Perisoreus canadensis).Auk 74: 260-261.

Peterson, R.T. 1941. A Field Guide to West-ern Birds. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 240 pp.

Peterson, R.T. 1947. A Field Guide to theBirds, 2nd edition. Houghton Mifflin Co.,Boston. 290 pp.

Pough, R.H. 1946. Audubon Bird Guide:Small Land Birds. National Audubon Society.Doubleday & Co., New York.

Ridgway, R. 1899. New species etc., of American birds.– IV. Fringillidae (Conclud-ed); Corvidae (Part). Auk 16:254-256.

Sterling, K.B. and M.G. Ainley. 2016. The American Ornithologists’ Union: The First Century 1883-1983. Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, No. 20.Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Swainson, W.J. and J. Richardson. 1831.Fauna boreali-Americana. Part 2. John Murray, London.

Walker, N. 2016. Canada’s national bird: the Gray Jay. Canadian Geographic 136:36-39 (December).

Dan Strickland1063 Oxtongue Lake RoadDwight, Ontario P0A 1H0E-mail: [email protected]

how the canada jay lost its name and why it matters ob v35#1 ap 2017.pdf · ica”, the american...

Documents