European and North American Variants
Some regard the North American and Eurasian (F. columbarius) populations as two distinct species. The first modern taxonomist to describe the Merlin was Carl Linnaeus, a Swede who reported his type specimen came from America. Thirteen years after Linnaeus's description Marmaduke Tunstall recognized the Eurasian birds as a distinct taxon aesalon in his Ornithologica Britannica. If two species of Merlins are recognized, the Old World birds would thus bear the scientific name F. aesalon.
Read more about this topic: Merlin (bird)
Famous quotes containing the words european, north, american and/or variants:
“No European spring had shown him the same intermixture of delicate grace and passionate depravity that marked the Maryland May.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“I meet him at every turn. He is more alive than ever he was. He has earned immortality. He is not confined to North Elba nor to Kansas. He is no longer working in secret. He works in public, and in the clearest light that shines on this land.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We are now in the Me Decade—seeing the upward roll of ... the third great religious wave in American history.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
“Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)