432 



SYSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — PA SSERES — OSCINES. 



Pacific coast, breeds from British Columbia to Alaska, S. in winter to California and Nevada. 

 Under this form were long included all the black-headed, red-backed, pink-sided Juncos from 

 the Koeky mountain region to the Pacific, but oregonus is now restricted to the Pacific coast 



form, and others have aflFt)rded the basis 

 of connectens and thiirberi. This is the 

 bird named Fringilla oregana by Town- 

 send in 1837 ; and this form of the word, 

 assumed by the A. 0. U. Committee to 

 be a typographical error, is not necessa- 

 rily such, for the country used to be 

 called Oregan, Ouragan, etc. However, 

 Townsend changed it to oregona in 1839 

 (Narr., p. 345). 



J. h. thur'beri. (To Eugene Carl- 

 ton Thurber of California.) Sierra 

 Snowbird. Thurber's Junco. Like 

 /. h. oregonus; sides paler and less ex- 

 tensively pinkish ; dorsal patch paler 

 and more sharply defined. SieiTa Ne- 

 vada to southern coast ranges of Cali- 

 fornia. Formerly included under ore- 

 gonus, and named since the last ed. of 

 238; A. O. U. List, 2d ed. 1895, No. 



Fig. 287. — Oregon Snowbird. 



the Key appeared. Anthony, Zoe, i, Oct. 1890, p. 



567 c. 



J. h. pino'sus. (Lat. full of pines, though it appears that the pines were full of the birds, 

 the implication being Point Piuos, a place on Monterey Bay, Cal.) Point Pinos Snow- 

 bird. LoOMis' Junco. " Most nearly like J. h. thurberi, but throat, jugulum, and fore breast 

 slate-gray, varying to dark slate-gray, and upper portions of head and neck slate-gray, varying 

 to blackish-slate ; " this dark color abruptly defined against the colors of the body ; interscap- 

 ulars and scapulars pale chestnut ; rump gray, tinged with chestnut ; sides faintly washed with 

 " vinaceous-buff." A local race, breeding down to sea level about the bay of Monterey, Cal., 

 in pine woods. J. pinosus LooMis, The Auk, Jan. 1893, p. 47 ; reduced to a subspecies, as 

 J. h. pinosus by A. 0. U. Committee in The Auk, Jan. 1894, p. 47 ; A. 0. U. List, 2d ed. 

 1895, No. 567 d. 



J. annec'tens. (Lat. annectens, annexing; ad, to, and necfo, I join.) Pink-SIDED Snow- 

 bird. Annex Junco. Quite different from any of tlie foregoing, and resembling caniceps. 

 General color clear ashy plumbeous, or leaden gray, that of the breast abruptly defined against 

 the white of the belly ; lores distinctly blackish, in contrast with rest of the head ; interscapu- 

 lars and scapulars reddish-brown, or light chestnut rufous, this color spreading more or less 

 over the wing-coverts ; sides pinkish, or pale cinnamon fulvous, like a lighter shade of the 

 color of the back, well marked against the white of the belly. Bill in life pinkish white, with 

 more or less dusky tip ; iris dark brown. Sexes alike. The general characters are thus those 

 of caniceps, from which tbis species is distinguished by the more abrupt definition of the ashy 

 breast from the white belly, and especially by the pink sides : and by so much it approaches 

 oregonus, though it is quite difi'erent in most respects. The eggs, 4 or 5 in number, 0.80 X 0.60, 

 are indistinguishable from those of other species of the genus. This bird, too curtly though 

 not incorrectly described in the 2d, 3d, and 4th eds. of the Key, was originally characterized 

 by Baird in Coop. Orn. Cal. i, 1870, p. 564 : see also my Birds N. W. 1874, p. 145 ; it has 

 turned out better than I expected, and may now be given specific rank. It breeds in the moun- 

 tains of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, is especially abundant in winter in Colorado, and 



