birds. The necessity for a definite and adequate nomenclature which naturalists experience in this department of education has been emphasized by the publication within a few years of a book entitled " A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists, and a Compendium of useful knowledge for Ornithologists."
This book has been prepared with great care by Robert Ridgway of the United States National Museum, and contains a large number of hand-painted plates showing nearly two hundred colors which represent selections from three hundred and fifty names of colors which are given in English, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Norwegian or Danish.[1]
The fact that a book involving so much technical knowledge and the expenditure of so much time and money was deemed justifiable is an evidence of the great need for some definite nomenclature.
In the introduction the author says: "Undoubtedly one of the chief desiderata of naturalists, both professional and ama- teur, is a means of identifying the various shades of colors named in descriptions, and of being able to determine exactly what name to apply to a particular tint which it is desired to designate in an original description. No modern work of this character it appears, is extant, — the latest publication of its kind which the author has been able to consult being Syme's edition of 'Werner's Nomenclature of Colors,' published in Edinburgh in 1821. It is found, however, that in Syme's 'nomenclature' that the colors have become so modified by time, that in very few cases do they correspond with the tints they were intended to represent."
The following are the opening sentences of the preface: "The want of a nomenclature of colors adapted particularly to the use of naturalists has ever been more or less an obstacle to
the study of Nature ; and although there have been many works
- ↑ A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists and Compendium of useful Knowledge for Ornithologists by Robert Ridgway, Curator,Department of Birds, National Museum. Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1886.
