CASSIAR SLATE-COLORED JUNCO 1049 



record of "small flocks * * * feeding contentedly^ in the shelter of fir 

 thickets" \\-ith. a foot of snow on the ground, wdth the temperature 

 zero near the summit of Mt. Mitchell on Dec. 23, 1930. 



Distribution 



Range. — Chiefly Appalachian Mountains from Maryland and West 

 Virginia to Georgia. 



Breeding range. — The Carolina slate-colored junco breeds in moun- 

 tains from northeastern West Virginia (Terra Alta) and western 

 Maryland (Accident, Finzel) south through extreme eastern Kentucky 

 (Black Mountain), western Virginia, and western North Carolina to 

 eastern Tennessee (Unicoi Mountains), northern Georgia (Eflijay), 

 and northwestern South Carolina (Sassafras Mountain). 



Winter range. — Winters chiefly on breeding grounds, descending in 

 part to lower elevations in the mountains and the adjacent valleys; 

 casually to central Maryland (Howard County), central Virginia 

 (Amelia), central North Carolina (Raleigh), coastal South Carolina 

 (Mount Pleasant), and central Georgia (Augusta). 



Egg dates. — North Carolina: 42 records, April 20 to August 11, 

 15 records, May 15 to June 9; 13 records, July 8 to July 22. 



Virginia: 6 records, May 6 to June 6. 



JUNCO HYEMALIS CISMONTANUS Dwight 

 Cassiar Slate -colored Junco 



Contributed by Oliver L. Austin, Jr. 



Habits 



This name denotes the junco population breeding in the basin 

 country east of the western coastal ranges from south central Yukon 

 southeastward to east central British Columbia and west central 

 Alberta, which A. H. MiUer (1941b) characterizes as "a group of hybrid 

 origin, now stabilized, which occupies a geographical area in the 

 breeding season to the exclusion of other forms." Males differ from 

 nominate hyemalis in having the head darker than the back and the 

 edge of the slate color on the chest convex instead of concave; females 

 have the sides washed with brown or pinkish rather than gray. The 

 form ostensibly intergrades with the several others whose nesting ter- 

 ritories its breeding range adjoins, and individuals taken on the 

 wintering grounds to the southward cannot always be identified with 

 certainty. And, as Miller adds, "In other regions birds of identical 

 appearance may be produced by hybridization." 



