Origins of some English common names in Hummingbirds (1 Viewer)

I'm a science journalist looking for information on the origins of hummingbird common names (mostly the English ones, although I realize many first appearances will be in French or German sources)... does anyone know where I could find first published uses for the various gemstones, "jacobin," "woodstar," "starthroat," "mountain gem," &c.?

OED quotations seem too late, chronologically, and I only figured out "mango" when I came across Olson and Levy 2013. Not sure where to go next, so any help would be much appreciated.

p.s.—I'm also trying to figure out why common names for sunbirds are so tame by comparison. Any ideas on that front?

Jacobins are two or three hummingbirds with dark hoods(?) like the Dominican friars called in France Jacobins because they had a friary on Rue St. Jacques in Paris. The first use I found was in a 1838 book, History of Trinidad. https://books.google.com/books?id=3GNZAAAAcAAJ&dq=jacobin+humming+bird&source=gbs_navlinks_s . Which also says most of "our birds" are best known by their French names. OED states 1842.

Thanks Mark. Very helpful. (Joseph's line about a "tufted neck" hummingbird perching on a Jacobin's bill seems a little hard to believe, but I suppose anything's possible in a small bird cage.)

I expect the first English use (indeed, the first scientific notice) would vary depending on the range of the bird in question.

Ruby-throated is common on the Atlantic coast, so no surprise that it was classified by Linnaeus in 1758. OED cites 1782 in English, which seems surprisingly late to me given the presence of English colonies in the bird's range from the early 1600s.

Ah, of course, at the time it may normally have simply been called a "humming bird": OED gives the origin of "humming-bird" as a 1637 treatise about New England. (There's another use from Barbados in 1647.)

For example Catesby (ca 1740) notes it's the only local species but doesn't give it a name:
https://books.google.com/books?id=h...yJUeCh2nngK9#v=onepage&q=humming-bird&f=false

Buffon (ca 1775) described a few hummingbirds including a "ruby" (which, by range, must be what we now call ruby-throated); he was fond of gemstone names. Translations to English were published swiftly, but it's clear that multiple names were in use for many birds, usually identified by author e.g. "the ruby of Buffon."

Latham (ca 1790) named a ruby-throated hummingbird ("of Brasil") but I'm not sure it's the same one. He also named a garnet-throated one?

Hummingbirds from the interior seem not to have been described until later.

A bit later in time, this is fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gould#Hummingbirds
Gould's _monograph_of_the_trochilidae_ can be found online, though the text is not searchable. He clearly prefers "latin" names, but also gives his preferred English name and a selection of previous names.

Although my main interest is in the scientific names of birds I do have some notes on English names (gathered for a proposed dictionary - if I am spared!) Many hummingbird names were popularised by the works of John Gould (i.e. A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or family of Humming Birds, vols. I-V, 1849-1861; An Introduction to the Trochilidæ, or family of Humming Birds, 1861; A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or family of Humming Birds. Supplement (completed by R. B. Sharpe), 1880-1887). These volumes are scarce and expensive, but in 1990 Wordsworth Editions, Ware, produced an edition containing all of Gould's hummingbird plates (alas, without the brilliant hand-colouring) and original notes to the plates. Many substantive names now familiar to us can be found there: Barbed-throat, Blossom-crown, Brilliant, Carib, Comet, Coquette, Emerald, Fairy, Fire-crown, Golden-tail, Helmet-crest, Hermit, Hill-Star, Inca, Jacobin, Lance-Bill, Mango, Mountaineer, Pied-tail, Plover-crest, Puff-leg, Ruby, Sabre-wing, Sapphire, Sapphire-wing, Shear-tail, Snow-cap, Star-frontlet, Sun Angel, Sun-beam, Sylph, Thorn-bill, Thorn-tail, Topaz, Train-bearer, Velvet-breast, Violet-Ear, Vizor-bearer, White-tip, and Wood Star. Some of these names are derived from the French (e.g. Jacobin, Topaz), but others were coined by Gould himself. Yet others never became popular, e.g. Brassy Tail, Cazique, Flame-bearer, Flutterer, Garnet, Panoplites.

Gould started his monograph in 1849 but I always wondered if all the great descriptive English names came from the time he showed his hummingbird collection at the Zoological Garden at Regent Park in 1851? Perhaps Latin would turn off the paying customers and sabre-wing could help sell the exhibit? I have not proven that. Gould's friend William Charles Linnaeus Martin (1798 - 1864) published a book about humming birds with special reference to the Zoo hummingbird exhibit.
https://books.google.com/books?id=P...rence+to+the+collection&source=gbs_navlinks_s . (1852) In it he gives Latin names but also English names when they are available and sometimes explains the names. In one interesting part he quotes Gould's notes attached to a specimen.

BirdsofAlabama said:

I'm a science journalist looking for information on the origins of hummingbird common names (mostly the English ones, although I realize many first appearances will be in French or German sources)... does anyone know where I could find first published uses for the various gemstones, "jacobin," "woodstar," "starthroat," "mountain gem," &c.?

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Click to expand...

I suggest you start with the entry for "HUMMING-BIRD" in : A dictionary of birds, by Alfred Newton, (assisted by Hans Gadow, with contributions from Richard Lydekker et al), here … and work your way from there.
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Thanks to everyone—it's been very helpful! For what it's worth, Gould's Monograph is available online: https://archive.org/details/monographTrochi1Goul. (This is Vol. 1, but others are available from the same source.) Although the article ended up moving in a different direction, I'm still curious to know which of the names were coined by Gould himself...

There's also an interesting piece co-written by Dickens and Charles Wright on Gould's hummingbird display: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12933845

You´ll find plenty more in the thousands of volumes in BHL (Biodiversity Heritage Library), fore example, see here or here.

Good luck in your work!

Maybe of interest regarding the dates of publication of the different plates see here.