92 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



few Flickers, badly damaged some late sown oats beside the house." 

 He watched them through glasses and saw them pull up the sprouting 

 grain and eat the kernels. 



Professor Beal (1910) adds the following observation in the jay's 

 favor : "But the jays do not frequent orchards entirely for fruit. During 

 May and June the writer many times visited an apple orchard, the leaves 

 of which were badly infested with a small green caterpillar, locally 

 known as the canker worm. When a branch is jarred, these insects 

 let themselves down to the ground on a thread spun for the purpose. 

 Many jays were seen to fly into the orc.hard, alight in a tree, and then 

 almost immediately drop to the ground. Observation showed that the 

 caterpillars, disturbed by the shock of the bird's alighting on a branch, 

 dropped, and that the birds immediately followed and gathered them in. 

 These caterpillars were found in the stomachs of several jays, in one 

 case to the extent of 90 percent of the contents." 



Voice. — Mr. Allen mentions some notes of this jay that are somewhat 

 dififerent from those recorded by others; he wrote to Major Bendire 

 (1895) : "One of their notes of alarm, uttered when they see something 

 they do not like, especially an Owl asleep in a tree, sounds like 'cur. 

 cur, cur' ; as soon as this is heard by others in the vicinity they will 

 commence to gather and join in the chorus. A sort of social note of 

 recognition sounds like 'whuze, whuze*. given while moving about among 

 the trees and shrubbery, and one of their common call notes sounds 

 like 'creak, creak'." 



APHBLOCOMA COEKULESCENS CALIFORNICA (Vigors) 

 CALIFORNIA JAY 



Plates 19, 20 



HABITS 



The three subspecies of Aphdocoma coendescens that are found in 

 California are common, and in many places abundant, over almost all 

 the State, except the desert regions and the mountains, but the subject 

 of this sketch, A. c. calif ornica, is confined to a comparatively narrow 

 coastal strip along the southern half of the coast. The 1931 Check-list 

 gives its range as "from the southern arm of San Francisco Bay to the 

 Mexican line, east to the eastern base of the Coast ranges." But Swarth 

 (1918), who does not recognize A. c. ohscura, extends its range into 

 northern Lower California, as far south as the San Pedro Martir Moun- 

 tains. 



Roughly speaking, the characters distinguishing the three California 

 races are size and color. 



