A request for the name of a sea bird, a name to be used for a boat, came to me at my desk in the museum one day. My memory was quickly exhausted with sea gull, sea swallow, and albatross. But I keep within reach the handy guide, _Birds of the Ocean_, by W. B. Alexander. In the index I found twenty pages of names, two columns to a page. They started with _aalge, Uria_, and went on down through the alphabet to _yelkouan, Puffinus_, and to _zimmermanni, Sterna_. EUPHONY NEEDED A name should be short, pleasant-sounding, and easy to remember and to say, so obviously such words as _Macronectes_, _Brachyramphus_, _Aptenodytes_, and _Coprotheres_ are ruled out among the scientific names. But further, when choosing a name for a boat from among those of water birds, one should consider the kind of a boat. There should be some appropriateness; some points of resemblance between the boat and the bird, or between the boat owner and the bird. Albatross seems right for a seagoing sailing ship, sailing to southern oceans; tern (or sea swallow) appropriate for light, dainty coastal sailing craft; puffin or auk or murre for power craft, for these birds spend most of their time stolidly on the water and when they fly have a direct buzzing flight. Loon and dabchick would do well for fresh-water boats. But one objection to both them and the various auks for a name is that these birds spend much time swimming underwater. They might better give their names to submarines. The big, stocky sea ducks, called scoters and eiders might suit some stout craft that ply to arctic waters. SCIENTIFIC NAMES AVAILABLE I reviewed the host of other names. Scientific names need not be ignored either. What is nicer than _Gygis_, the name of the white, fairy, or love tern of the South Seas for a small summer sail boat? Then going farther afield into austral waters for far traveling craft there's _Diomedea_, the name of the albatross, and _Daption_, the medium-sized petrel that also is called pintado for the same reason a white-splashed horse is called a pinto, and _Prion_, the tiny whalebirds of the antarctic whose blue-gray back is near the ideal ocean-camouflage color. _Larus_, a good honest name without frills, belonging to the gulls that haunt our harbors, coasts, and lakes, would do for a plain, everyday sort of boat. Kittiwake is another gull that spends more time at sea. Gannets are boldly black and white, strong-flying birds of the North Atlantic, and one could use that, or its scientific equivalent, _Moris_, for a boat.