Just a quick note for those of you who are confused with regards to
punctuation for English names used in Christidis and Boles (1994). The
punctuation used in their list is correct and not the result editorial
errors.
The procedures of hyphenation and capitalization adopted by Christidis &
Boles (1994) for their English names are those set out and discussed in RAOU
(1978): Recommended English Names for Australian Birds, published as a
supplement to Emu 77. The introduction to Christidis & Boles (1994) cites
this publication as the basis of its English names.
Briefly, a name requires capitalization of the second part of the compound
group name of a species if the second part is the larger group to which the
species belongs (e.g. Reed-Warblers are warblers; Imperial-Pigeons are
pigeons; Sea-Eagles are eagles).
A Little Button-quail is not a quail, being in a completely different family
to quails, so `quail? is not capitalized. Little Button-quail belongs to a
group named the Button-quails.
There are a small number of potential group names which have not been
recognized due to various problems, e.g. Night Heron, Golden Plover, Reef
Egret. These groups are discussed on p. 249 of RAOU (1978).
The punctuation set out in RAOU (1978) is the Australian standard and,
similar to that used in other countries, e.g. by the American Ornithologists
? Union. Anyone interested in writing and editing material should have a
look at it.
Hope this helps,
Margaret Considine.
Ph +61 2 6281 3941
Fax +61 2 6281 7326
http://www.mpx.com.au/~sbennett
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