Tweeters,

The "Cassiar Junco" was unquestionably named after the Cassiar Mountains, a
mountain range that extends from northern BC into the Yukon, and not after
the now-defunct mining town, as Kevin suggests. The town wasn't even
established until 1952, decades after the junco was named.

I repeat here a message I sent to Ron Pittaway in Ontario, who also asked
about the origin of the name a few months ago:

***************************************************

The name would certainly refer to the Cassiar Mountains, not to the
(now-defunct) town, which was established only in 1952.

The form cismontanus was first described by Jonathan Dwight in 1918,
although I'm not sure if he applied the term "Cassiar Junco" at that time.

The Cassiar Mountains occupy a large area of about 63,000 square km in
northern BC (mostly) and the southern Yukon (see the CANADIAN MOUNTAIN
ENCYCLOPEDIA website at http://www.bivouac.com/ArxPg.asp?ArxId=1367 .) The
name was officially adopted in 1917, although the term "Cassiar Ranges" was
used by geologist George Dawson as far back as 1887.

*******************************************************

Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus at telus.net



-----Original Message-----
From: tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu
[mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Kevin
Purcell
Sent: April-13-11 9:07 PM
To: Tweeters
Cc: Kevin Purcell
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] RE: Juncos

On Apr 13, 2011, at 3:58 PM, Joseph V Higbee wrote:

> I was looking for further info on this species, subspecies or whatever.

Hybrid.

Though as Sibley points out the chance that the junco will split in the
future is one reason to care if you list :-)

> Either way I don't imagine the birds will care.

Precisely. But birders have to communicate things they do care about
arbitrary names.

The spelling reference was a joking reference to a previous thread ... I've
met two birders recently who when I gave them my full name mentioned the
"spelling thread" on Tweeters. Infamy! Infamy!

But it is named for Cassiar, BC. It's an asbestos ghost town (which I think
makes it even more interesting).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiar,_British_Columbia

Though I can't find the original cite.

A reference from Joeseph Grinell (i.e Prof "Method for field notes" if you
know his work) in 1923 is one of the earliest I can find that uses the name

http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Condor/files/issues/v025n05/p0172-p0176.pdf

I don't have a copy but they're mentioned in Bent too (the Natural History
Museum Bulletins before the books) and so probably in the Dover editions
too.

A search of Google Books shows plenty of references

http://www.google.com/search?q=Cassiar-junco

e.g. including Canadian 1904 reference

http://books.google.com/books?id=pNQpAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cassiar
-junco&hl=en&ei=0HCmTeigIpGH0QGE94X0CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=
10&ved=0CFwQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

It's one of those things where someone makes Cassiar into Cassiar's ("hey,
it sounds like a name") and if you don't know the origin of the name you
just propagate the version you heard.
--
Kevin Purcell (Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA)
kevinpurcell at pobox.com
http://kevinpurcell.posterous.com
http://twitter.com/kevinpurcell

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