1918] Swarth: The Pacific Coast Jays of the Genus Aphelocoma 413 
californica and hypoleuca, I do not know. There are no specimens of 
either at hand illustrative of marked variation toward the neighboring 
race. 
In southern California, as far north as Fort Tejon, the eastern 
boundary of the range of californica is sharply defined by the western 
margins of the Colorado and Mohave deserts. At this point the sub- 
species califormca extends in typical form to the eastern bases of the 
surrounding coast ranges, and stops there abruptly. The Lower 
Sonoran deserts form a broad and impassable barrier to birds of this 
genus. 
Farther north, from the northern boundary of Ventura County 
northward, while there is no such evident obstacle to distribution, 
there is an extensive stretch of country, the arid, timberless west side 
of the San Joaquin Valley, where conditions are so unfavorable to 
the species that it is almost, if not entirely, absent. I have considered 
the range of A. c. californica as lying just west of this section. There 
are no specimens at hand from any point in this region. There are 
available three skins from the vicinity of Mount Pinos, Ventura 
County, and two from Paicines, San Benito County, these points 
lying approximately along the dividing line between the ranges of 
californica and immanis. Of the specimens from the Mount Pinos 
region, two November birds from the head of Piru Creek show a 
decided approach to Sierra Nevada immanis. In fact, regarded by 
themselves they might well be considered as belonging to that sub- 
species, but considering the manner in which the seetion where they 
were taken is separated from the range of immanis, and the econtin- 
uous distribution of californica from this point westward, they had, 
perhaps, better be regarded as individual extremes of californica, 
taken at the edge of its range and illustrating intergradation with 
immanis. The two Paicines specimens are also evidently intergrades 
toward immanis, though not leaning so markedly toward the latter 
race. There are specimens at hand from various points along the 
coastal slope of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and 
Santa Clara counties, as already enumerated, and these are so 
obviously like the bird of southern California and northern Lower 
California as to leave no doubt as to their subspecifie identity. 
Aphelocoma californica oocleptica, new subspecies 
Type.——Male adult, no. 7123, Mus. Vert. Zool.; Nicasio, Marin County, 
California; February 23, 1909; collected by Walter P. Taylor; original num- 
ber 647. 
