Birds of the Caucasus. 7 



GARRULUS KRYNICKI. 



The Black-headed Jay is found throughout the lower forests 

 and plains of the Caucasus. 



The Jay from the Caucasus must of course bear the name 

 G. krynicki, which was originally applied by Kaleniczenko to 

 a specimen obtained at Georgievsk. It is, however, more 

 nearly allied to the Palestine bird, G. atricapillus, than to 

 the extreme form from Asia Minor. I have a series of skins 

 collected by Danford in the latter country bridging over the 

 distance between these two Jays, which proves them to be 

 conspecific. Besides a skin from Kutais, collected by 

 Michailovsky, I have in my collection two skins from Len- 

 koran obtained from Herr Tancre*. These latter are very 

 different from the Kutais example, and are intermediate in 

 colour between the extreme form of G. krynicki and G. hyr- 

 canus, suggesting the idea that these forms are also con- 

 specific. The Lenkoran examples are scarcely to be distin- 

 guished from the extreme form of the Asia- Minor bird, ex- 

 cept that scarcely any of the feathers of the head are abso- 

 lutely black, and the general colour is that of the Persian 

 bird. It seems probable that all these local races of Jays 

 interbreed when they have an opportunity of doing so ; for 

 Bogdanow, in his ' Birds of the Volga/ p. 114, says that 

 many of the Jays in the provinces of Kazan and Simbirsk are 

 intermediate between G. glandarius and G. brandti, and pro- 

 poses for them the name of G. severtzowi. He says the 

 ground-colour of the head is a brick-brown. 



The series of local races of the Trans-Caucasian Jays ap- 

 pears to be as follows : 



G. atricapillus. A pale form, with a white forehead aud 

 throat, found in Turkey, Asia Minor, Palestine, Syria, West 

 Trans-Caucasia, and Persia. 



[G. atricapillus, subsp. krynicki, was described from skins 

 obtained north of the Caucasus, and is said by Bogdanow to 

 be the same as the Trans-Caucasian bird.] 



G. atricapillus , subsp. anatolice, is hitherto nameless. It 

 is much darker than the preceding, especially on the fore- 

 head and throat. It is the G. krynicki of Dresser, nee Kale- 

 niczenko, and appears to be confined to Asia Minor. 



