372 LIFE mSTOEIES OF NORTH AMBEIOAN EIEDS. 



146. Aphelocoma woodhousei (Baied). 



WOODHOUSE'S JAY. 



Cyanocitta tcoodhousei Baied, Birds of ISTorth America, 1858, PI. 59. 

 Aphelocoma woodhousei Eidgway, Field and Forest, June, 1877, 208. 

 (B 438, 236a, E 292, 355, XT 480.) 



Geogeaphical eange: Western United States; north to sontheastern Oregon, 

 southern Idaho and Wyoming; eant to Coloiado and New Mexico; west to Nevada and 

 southeastern California; south through Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas into 

 northern Mexico. 



Woodhouse's Jay is an inhabitant of the southern Eocky Mountain regions 

 and the ranges of the Great Basin between the former and the Sierra Nevadas. 

 Besides the locahties ah-eady mentioned, it is common in many parts of Utah. 

 Dm-ing the biological survey made under the direction of Dr. C. Hart Merriam, 

 in the Death Valley region of southeastern California, in the spring and summer 

 of 1891, Woodhouse's Jay was found on all of the desert ranges which furnish a 

 growth of pinon or juniper. In California it was observed in the Wliite Moun- 

 tains, Inyo, Argus, Coso, and Panamint ranges; in Nevada, in the Charleston, 

 Grapevine, Juniper, and Palu'oc mountains, and in Utah, in the Beaverdam 

 Mountains. In the latter part of June young which were able to fly were found 

 among the willows along the streams in the Panamint Mountains, north of 

 Telescope Peak.-^ 



Mr. Robert Ridgway found these birds very abundant in various parts of 

 Nevada, and also met with them in Utah and at City of Rocks, Idaho. I observed 

 this species on the southern slopes of Steens Mountain, in southeastern Oregon, 

 in August, 1877, which locality marks about the northwestern limits of their 

 range. 



Mr. Charles E. Aiken was, I believe, the first naturalist who took the nests 

 and eggs of this Jay, and he sent me several sets taken in El Paso County, 

 Colorado, in 1873. 



Dr. Elliott Coues, in his Biixls of the Northwest, states: "It is very abundant 

 in the upper parts of Arizona, and widely and equally distributed in all sorts 

 of places, with the exception, perhaps, of the recesses of pine woods, whicli are 

 generally relinquished in favor of the long-crested species. Its preference, how- 

 ever, is for oak openings, rough, broken hillsides covered with patches of juniper, 

 manzanita, and yuccas, bushy ravines, and wooded creek bottoms."^ 



Mr. William Lloyd, in his List of Buxls of Western Texas, says regarding 

 this species: "Resident Avherever there is shin oak, at the heads of nearly all 

 creeks. Tolerably common. Nest with three eggs found April 19, 1885, on 

 Spring Creek, in Ioav tinderbrush ; another, same date and position of nest, with 

 three young." ^ 



' North. American Fauna, No. 7, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1893, p. 69. 

 = U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories, No. 3, 1874, p. 220. 

 2 The Auk, Vol. IV, 1887, p. 290. 



