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Cas,
That is a good question. They should do so. I had
correspondence with an American birdo about six months ago, on this very
subject. This person explained to me that the difference is that whilst the
early settlers to Australia tried to give the new animals even if they were not
remotely related, names as close as possible to those back home in England, in
contrast, the early settlers to America tried to give the new animals names as
far as possible from those back home in England. So we have two opposite sets of
biases, that both produce some odd problems. It is hardly surprising when you
look at American spelling, as in the can't spell "cheque", can't say
"aluminium" put dates back to front, etc. Therefore Americans call
Buteo Buzzards "hawks" (which is sort of correct in that buzzards
are a sub set of hawks) but they call vultures "buzzards" which is really weird,
even though the new world vultures are quite likely not at all close to old
world vultures and maybe should not be in the order Falconiformes at
all.
Is 'Red-Tails In Love' a good book? I have often
seen that book in book shops and wonder why do we get that book in
Australia. Seems very obscure to me.
Philip
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