woodhouse's jay 107 



APHELOCOMA COERULESCENS WOODHOUSEI (Baird) 



WOODHOUSE'S JAY 



Plate 21 



HABITS 



Woodhouse's jay has long stood on our Hst as a distinct species and 

 was originally described as such. There are some reasons for thinking 

 that the original designation may be more nearly correct than the pres- 

 ent concept as a subspecies. Mr. Swarth (1918) says: "Compared 

 with any of the subspecies of Aphelocoma californica, A. woodhonsei 

 differs in coloration and in proportions of bill. The blue areas are dull 

 and pale, the back is strongly suffused with bluish gray, and the under 

 parts and throat with gray; the under tail coverts are blue. The gen- 

 eral effect of these modifications is to produce a much more uniformly 

 and inconspicuously marked bird than A. californica. The bill of wood- 

 housei averages longer than in californica^ but is more slender." Believ- 

 ing this jay to be a distinct species, he says : "The range of the Wood- 

 house jay in California is restricted to scattered and disconnected 

 areas of Upper Sonoran in the Inyo region, the arid desert section of 

 the eastern part of the state. In the late summer and fall it is a visitant 

 to the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, where it comes into direct 

 contact with A. c. immanis, but it apparently does not breed in this 

 section." He claims further that, although there is intergradation be- 

 tween the three California races where their habitats meet, "nothing 

 of the sort can be detected along the boundary between innnanis and 

 woodhousei" ; and he says that "comparison of three California speci- 

 mens at hand in fresh fall plumage, with individuals taken at the same 

 season in southern Arizona, shows no difference between the two birds." 



According to the 1931 Check-list, the wide range of Woodhouse's jay 

 extends from "southeastern Oregon, southern Idaho, and southern Wyo- 

 ming south to southeastern California (east of Sierra Nevada), southern 

 Arizona, southern New Mexico, and southwestern Texas." 



Woodhouse's jay is a bird of the foothills and the lower slopes of the 

 mountains. In Arizona we found it rather local in its distribution, 

 mainly in the oak belts about the bases of the mountains and on the steep, 

 brush-covered hillsides ; we never sav/ it below 3,000 or above 7,500 

 feet, but noted it mostly between 5,000 and 6,000 feet. We first saw it 

 about the base of the Mule Mountains, where the blackjack oaks grew 

 thickly in the little valleys and gorges or were scattered over the opener 

 hillsides. About our camp in the foothills of the Dragoon Mountains, 

 where blackjack and other oaks dotted the gently sloping hills and 

 grew more densely in the brush-covered gulches well up into the moun- 

 tains, these jays were really common. But they were very shy. We 



