April, 1847.] 201 



Boreali-Americana, yet he appears to have laid too much stress upon char- 

 acters subject to great variation, as size, relative length of quills and color. 

 The adult of the Loggerhead is a beautiful bird, and might well have been 

 called excubitoroides, for the resemblance in colour and marking to the Euro- 

 pean excubitor is very great. Above, it is of a clear pearl grey colour with the 

 upper tail coverts, and exterior edges of the scapulars, nearly pure white; be- 

 neath pure white ; the quantity of white on the tail feathers varies, but gene- 

 rally is in proportion to the age of the bird. 



The relative length of quills in the Shrikes is an uncertain character, and 

 differs very much according to age. In the young of this species, the second 

 quill is generally much shorter than the sixth, but in the adult, equals and may 

 even exceed the sixth in length; the proportion of the third, fourth and fifth to 

 each other is also exceedingly various, and indeed in each wing of the same 

 bird it is very common to find the proportion of the quills differing very mate- 

 rially. This I have found to be the case in the European and both American 

 species. 



It is rather strange that this bird so abundant in the southern, western and 

 north western portions of our country, should not be found in the middle and 

 northern Atlantic States. In California it is very common. 

 Lanius septentrionalis, Gmel. Northern Shrike. 

 L. borealis, Vieill. Swains. 



I found our Butcher Bird in the Californian ridge of mountains in Novem- 

 ber, but did not meet with it along the coast during summer, appearing to be 

 replaced by the Loggerhead, which is a summer resident. 

 Perisoreus Canadensis, (Linn.) Bonap. Canada Jay. 

 We met with numbers of this plain and familiar bird in the Rocky moun= 

 tains of the interior. 



Cyanocorax Stelleri, (Pallas) Bonap. Steller's Jay. 



This species is occasionally met with in the pine groves of the mountains 

 from New Mexico to California. 



Cyanocorax Californicus, (Vigors) Nobis. California Jay. 

 Garrulus Californicus, Vigors, Zool. Beechy's voyage. 

 O. ultramarinus, Aud. Nutt. non Bonap. 

 The California Jay has been hitherto confounded by American ornithologists 

 with the Mexican G. ultramarinus, accurately described by Prince Bonaparte, 

 in the Journal of this Society, in 1825, and afterwards described and figured 

 also, by Temminck in his Planches colorees, 439. It is strange that the 

 Prince himself should have committed the same error of confoundiug the two 

 species in his Comparative list of the Birds of Europe and North America, 

 quoting at the same time Audubon's plate and description, which is clearly 

 the Californicus. 



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