G'day,
Many thanks for the various emails I've received on the subject of
hyphenisation and capitalisation. Philip Veerman's email to the list summed
up nicely the situation - and I now understand the ground rules.
Unfortunately I don't have access to Emu or Wingspan to refer to the
articles suggested by Bob Forsyth. I have, however, downloaded the latest
draft list from Birds Australia dated September 2003 (although this only
seems to differ from the February list in that it addresses the perceived
inclusion of a trinomial). A few comments, in no particular order (and
again please send any replies that are not to the list to
:
1. The BA list refers to Cuckoo-Shrike. Presumably this is a mistake
unless they are now considered to be shrikes.
2. I was mistaken in hyphenating Night-Heron. It is, in fact, Night Heron.
3. The September 2003 BA list references Clements 1991, even though the
taxonomy presented is not used. But since then Clements has published many
updates, resulting in a new publication in 2000, which in turn has had many
updates. Not used.
4. I can understand why Giant-Petrel (or Giant Petrel) should be so named,
but Storm-Petrel and Diving-Petrel, apart from being very different, belong
in their own family groups and are not true petrels. So doesn't this break
the rules?
5. I am also curious about robins. There is a family of 'Australasian
Robins' which contains a number of species called flycatchers, robins,
ground robins, scrub robins, etc. Surely the ground robins and scrub robins
are therefore robins (Clements identifies them as 'Ground-Robin' and
'Scrub-Robin') just as much as the other robins? (And none of them are
really robins - look at your Christmas cards!)
I think I'll leave it there and reluctantly use Christidis and Boles as a
reference point.
Cheers - Trevor Ford.
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