372 LIFE HISTOKIES OP NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



146. Aphelocoma woodhousei (Baied). 



WOODHOUSE'S JAY. 



Cyanocitta woodhousei Baird, Birds of North America, 1858, PI. 59. 

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

 (B 438, C 236a, R 292, C 355, U 480.) 



Geographical range: Western United States; north to southeastern Oregon, 

 southern Idaho and Wyoming; east to Colorado 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 Rocky Mountain regions 

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

 Besides the localities already mentioned, it is common in many parts of Utah. 

 During 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 pifion or juniper. In California it was observed in the White Moun- 

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

 Grapevine, Juniper, and Pahroc 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. 1 



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 Birds 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, which 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." 2 



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

 this species: "Resident wherever 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 low underbrush; another, same date and position of nest, with 

 three young." 3 



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

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

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



