Robert Ridgway was a renowned ornithologist who wrote an eight - volume body of work onThe Birds of North and Middle America.(Three more volume were nail by a fellow after his end . ) He realize a need for exchangeable color naming in ornithology and other science that had to classify large quantities of natural specimen , and published a system for identifying and name 1115 colors in 1912 .
Ridgway’sColor Standards and Color Nomenclaturewas not the first attempt to standardise coloring material . taxonomy of 100 to 400 color name had been published through the nineteenth century and more tight organisation base on spectrum psychoanalysis or colouration - wheel positioning had used symbols or numbers to represent accurate combinations of color feature film ( hue , tone , light , shade , etc . ) . Ridgway ’s , however , was the first to bring home the bacon such a finely divided color categorization that also used words from natural language , which , he argue , despite their impreciseness , were more useful to natural scientist .
The Good Book was printed with 1115 painstakingly produced color plates , including more than 100 shades of gray . The names for those gray let in mellifluous term like plumbeous ( the color of jumper lead ) , plumbago ( a blossom with lead - coloured petals ) , glaucous ( from the Latin / Greek for blueish - gray ) , vinaceous ( wine-coloured - colored ) , cinerous ( clinker - colour ) , and heliotrope ( a flush with purplish flower petal ) . Varley is named for landscape painter John Varley and Payne after cougar William Payne . After you read this list , you’re able to proudly tell all your friends you were intellectually energise by read 50 shade of greyish .

1.Cadet Gray2.Carbon Gray3.Castor Gray4.Cinereous5.Clear Blue - Green Gray6.Court Gray7.Dawn Gray8.Drab - Gray9.French Gray10.Glaucous - Gray11.Dark Glaucous - Gray12.Deep Glaucous - Gray13.Gull Gray14.Light Gull Gray15.Hathi Gray16.Heliotrope - Gray17.Dark Heliotrope Slate18.Iron Gray19.Lavender - Gray20.Lilac - Gray21.Mineral Gray22.Mouse Gray23.Blackish Mouse Gray24.Neutral Gray25.Dusky Neutral Gray26.Olive - Gray27.Payne ’s Gray28.Light Payne ’s Gray29.Pale Payne ’s Gray30.Pearl Gray31.Plumbeous32.Blackish Plumbeous33.Plumbeous - Black34.Dark Plumbeous35.Plumbago Gray36.Dark Plumbago Gray37.Puritan Gray38.Purplish Gray39.Pallid Purplish Gray40.Sky Gray41.Slate Color42.Slate - Gray43.Slate - Black44.Blackish Slate45.Smoke Gray46.Storm Gray47.Varley ’s Gray48.Vinaceous - Gray49.Deep Vinaceous - Gray50.Violet - Robert Gray