COAST JAY 65 



CYANOCITTA STELLERI CARBONACEA Grinnell 

 COAST JAY 



The coast jay, or Grinnell's jay, as Ridgway (1904) calls it, is very 

 evidently quite intermediate in characters between stelleri on the north 

 and frontalis on the east and south, for Dr. Grinnell (1900b) in naming 

 it de3c,ribed it as "intermediate in size * * * between C. stelleri and 

 C. stelleri frontalis. Dorsal surface sooty-black as in stelleri, but with 

 blue on forehead nearly as extended as in frontalis. Tint of blue of 

 posterior lower parts paler than in stelleri, and extending further for- 

 ward into pectoral region, as in frontalis." Furthermore, its range, 

 the "coast region of Oregon and California, from the Columbia River 

 south to Monterey County," is just where one would expect to find the 

 two previously named forms to intergrade. This is just another case, 

 like annectens, where the naming of an intermediate immediately pro- 

 duces two more sets of intergrades. Dr. Grinnell (1900b) says further: 

 "C. stelleri annectens from Idaho resembles carbonacea somewhat 

 closely, but the white spot over the eye distinguishes both C. s. annectens 

 and C. s. macrolopha [= diademata] of the Northern and Southern 

 Rocky Mountain regions, respectively, from the parallel Pacific Coast 

 races, carbonacea and frontalis, neither of which has any trace of such 

 a marking." 



What has been written about the nesting habits, eggs, plumages, food 

 and general habits of the other Pacific coast races of the species would 

 apply very well to this subspecies. The measurements of 40 eggs average 

 30.6 by 22.5 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 

 33.1 by 22.4, 31.1 by 24.0, and 26.6 by 21.2 millimeters. 



CYANOCITTA STELLERI FRONTALIS (Rldffway) 



BLUE-FRONTED JAY 



Plate 12 



HABITS 



This is the "crested blue jay" of the Sierra Nevadas and the inner 

 coast mountain ranges of northern California. Ridgway (1904) gave 

 it the c.ommon name of Sierra Nevada jay, which seems a more appro- 

 priate designation than blue-fronted, as the blue stripes on the forehead 

 are not conspicuously more prominent than in some of the other races 

 of the species. He describes it as "much lighter colored, and average 

 size decidedly less" than in C. s. carbonacea, which, in turn, he calls 

 "paler throughout and averaging slightly smaller" than C. s. stelleri. 



The chosen summer haunts of the blue-fronted jay are in the conifer- 

 ous forests of the Transition and Canadian Zones of mountain ranges, 



