406 University of California Publications in Zoology Vou. 17 
The genus Aphelocoma is, with the exception of the singularly 
isolated Florida species, restricted to the southwestern portion of 
North America. The several species included therein are for the 
most part rather sharply defined and not prone to split up into local 
races, though it is probably true that certain forms now recognized 
as “‘species’’ are as yet so imperfectly understood as to leave their 
true status and distribution a matter of some doubt. 
In California there are three well defined species of the genus, 
Aphelocoma californica (divided in this state into three subspecies), 
A. woodhousei, and A. insularis. The first mentioned, in its three 
forms, occurs over the greater part of the state. It is primarily a 
bird of the Upper Sonoran zone, especially favoring those regions 
where there is live oak timber or serub oak brush, and extending 
locally up into low Transition. It is apparently absent from the 
extreme northern coast region, as also from the mountains above 
Transition, and from the Lower Sonoran deserts of the southeast. 
Aphelocoma woodhousei occupies disconnected areas of Upper 
Sonoran on certain of the mountain ranges of the Inyo region, and 
on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada. A. insularis is found only on 
Santa Cruz Island. These three species are distinguished by certain 
trenchant characters. The Santa Cruz Island jay appears to be eut 
off from contact with its nearest mainland relative by the intervening 
channel, though the distance to be traversed is not so great as, on the 
face of it, to be considered an impassable barrier to a bird of this 
nature. A. californica and A. woodhousei meet at the east base of 
the Sierra Nevada, where at certain seasons both species may be 
found at the same places; for the most part the specific characters of 
each remain stable along this border line. 
The California forms of Aphelocoma all belong to a section of the 
genus that it seems to me is deserving of recognition, nomenclaturally, 
as distinct from another aggregation now included in the same genus. 
Californica, woodhousei, insularis, and hypoleuca, together with cyanea 
and certain other Texan and Mexican species, all possess in common 
certain conspicuous features of structure, coloration, etc., and all are 
as sharply distinguished from the Aphelocoma siebert group. Coues 
(1903, pp. 497, 499) proposed that the latter be separated as a sub- 
genus ‘‘Sieberocitta,’’ as distinguished from true Aphelocoma. This 
suggested subgenus was not aecepted by the A. O. U. Committee (1908, 
p. 394), because of being ‘‘based on color characters alone.’’ As 
a matter of fact the distinguishing features (as was pointed out by 
