HIKDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLP: AMERICA. 317 



('[i/anocUtal crassirostris Bonaparte, Coiisp. Av., i, 1850, 1^78 ("Mexi<;i) mit'ii- 



' tale"). 

 Cyanocorax gcoffrmji Bonaparte, Compt. Rend., xxxi, 1850, 504 (San Bias, 



Jalisco; coll. Paris Mus.). — Baird, Rep. Pacific R. R. Surv., ix, 1858, 592. 

 \_CyanociUa'] (jeoffroii'i Boucard, Catalog. Avium, 1870, 279, no. 8730. 



CISSILOPHA MELANOCYANEA (Hartlaub). 

 HARTLAUBS JAY. 



Adults (sexes alike). — Head, neck, chest, and breast uniform black; 

 back, scapulars, rump, and wings uniform verditer blue, vaiying to 

 cerulean l)lu('; upper tail-coverts and tail deeper and less greenish 

 (cerulean to almost cobalt) blue; abdomen, sides, flanks, and under 

 tail-coverts dull grayish blue; bill black, sometimes (in younger 

 individuals^) partly yellow; iris yellow;" legs and feet black or 

 yellow. 



Adult male.— Length (skins), 279.5-2^7 (288); wing, 180-13H (185); 

 tail, 142-153.5 (149.5); exposed culmen, 26.5-28.5 (28): depth of bill 

 through nostrils, 11-12.5 (11.5): tarsus. 38.5-42 (40): middle toe. 24- 

 25.5 (24.5).^' 



Adult female. — Length (skin), 320; wing, 133.5; tail, 155; exposed 

 culmen, 25.5; tarsus, 38.5; middle toe, 22.5. '^ 



Highlands of Guatemala (up to 8,000 feet), Salvador, Hoiidui-as. 

 and northern Nicaragua (Chontales). 



[I have not seen a young bird in first plumage, but have examined 

 several that are evidently less than a year old. These have the bill 

 mostly yellow, and the black of the head, etc., less intense. 



Two specimens labeled as from Honduras are quite like Guatemalan 

 examples; but a third,'' also said to be from Honduras, is so different 

 in coloration from all the othei" specimens examined (eleven in num- 

 ber) that 1 suspect it ma}' have come from som(>. different district of 

 Honduras from the other specimens mentioned. In thi.s example, the 

 back, rump, and upper tail-coverts are bright ceridean ])lue, deepen- 

 ing into cobalt on the tail, instead of verditer blue and dull cerulean 

 blue, respectively, as in true O. inelanocyanea, while th(^ under parts 

 of the body are dusky cobalt })lue instead of grayish glaucous-blue or 

 dull grayi.sh cerulean blue. It thus appears to agree with a si)ecimen 

 from Chontales, Nicaragua, mentioned bv Salvin and (xodmaii (Biol. 

 Centr.-Am., Aves, i, p. 499), which "'is darker, as regards the blue 

 colour" than an}' Guatemalan example examined by those authors; 

 hence it seems not improbaldc that northern Nicaragua and adjacent 

 parts of Honduras may l)e the home of a darker race of this species. 



" Heyde and Lux, manuscript; a specimen with bill partly yellow and probably a 

 younger l)ir(l, thougli in fully :i<lnlt pliimnL't', li:id the iridi's "liglit brown." 

 ''Three s|)tHiiiiens. 

 'One specimen. 

 ''No. -42292, coll. Am. Mus. N;ii. Ilist.i Law i.n, ,..•,, II,. .lion i, llon.lMnis: \. IMwanls. 



