given to rest or recreation), he hopes that critics may be lenient as to this shortcoming of the work.
A matter which has called forth wholly unexpected criticism is the necessarily irregular manner in which brief descriptions of nests and eggs are interspersed through the pages of this work. That the purpose of these "vague and scattered descriptions" might be misunderstood by anyone was a possibility which did not occur to the author; on the contrary, their intent seemed so self-evident that explanation was not thought of. Since, however, one writer does not "see how they can be of much use to the student of oölogy," and inquires why, "if considered of value — were they not given uniformly throughout the work," it may be stated here that these brief descriptions are given only (or at least mainly) in cases where some particular style of nest or coloration of eggs is characteristic of a group (family or genus), as a sort of accessory or supplemental group character,[1] and that the numerous instances of their omission result either from the absence of anything specially characteristic or distinctive or else (as is often the case among the tropical forms) from lack of information on the subject. Placing the accent marks to names of localities in Mexico and other parts of Spanish America may possibly be criticized on the ground of inexpediency or that of irregularity in following the rules governing such cases; but the author has been led to do so by the apparent natural tendency of English-speaking people to sadly mispronounce such names, even when spelled precisely the same in Spanish and English; for example: Bogotá (Bo-go-tah′), Davíd (Dah-veed′), Ecuadór (Ek-wah-dōr′), Salvadór (Sal-vah-dōr′), Generál (Hen-er- ahl′), and Trinidád (Tre-ne-dad′), which in English (at least com- monly) are pronounced Bo-gó-tah, Da′-vid, Ek′-wa-dor, Sal′-va-dor, Gén-er-al and Trín-i-dad, respectively. There are, of course, definite rules of accentuation in the Spanish language, but these are unknown to most Americans and other English-speaking people, and therefore the accent is frequently given where the rules do not require it. In a majority of cases, where the accent mark does not appear the accent is normal, that is, the emphasis falls on the penultimate syllable.[2] Other cases where the accent is omitted are those words in which the Spanish accent agrees with the prevalent English one; as Nicaragua, Venzeuela, Yucatan, etc. In one case (that of Santa F6) general usage is followed, although the accent mark is, of course, wholly superfluous in a word of only one syllable.
Robert Ridgway.
July 26, 1911.
