488 



Mija river, I saw a family of five or six individuals which appeared to be in full moult; and on 

 the 16th of August I shot a nearly moulted female near the village of Tjabuk. The last that I 

 saw were in a swampy wood near Kungur, on the Western Ural, which I visited on the 29 th of 

 August, but I did not then succeed in shooting any." "We have not yet been able to examine 

 the specimens procured by Mr. W. Meves ; but we are indebted to Mr. Leonida Sabanaeff for 

 several very well-preserved specimens of this Jay, obtained by him in the Ural, where, he states, 

 it is common, and more widely distributed than the Siberian Jay, numerous in the oak-woods in 

 the Government of Ufa, and in the pine-woods of the Keshtemsky and Kaslinsky Ural. These 

 specimens we have carefully compared with skins from Japan, and find that they agree precisely, 

 except that the rufous colour on the nape is not quite so bright in the Ural specimens ; but the 

 difference is so very slight that it is scarcely possible, after the closest examination, to distinguish 

 them apart. Mr. Sabanaeff, however, considers that the Ural bird is really distinct from Garrulus 

 l/randti, as will be seen from the notes he has sent us on the present species ; but we cannot, for 

 the reasons above stated, agree with his views. In a letter to Dresser he gives the following 

 notes respecting the present species : — " I do not consider the specimens I sent to you to be 

 true Garrulus brandtii, Eversmann, as the colour of the head in examples of this latter species 

 from the Altai is chestnut-brown, much brighter than in those I sent, and separated more 

 abruptly from the grey colour of the back ; but I look on the Ural bird as an intermediate 

 form between Garrulus glandarius and Garrulus brandtii, approaching somewhat nearer to the 

 former than to the latter. This variety has been named by Professor Bogdanoff Garrulus 

 glandarius, var. severtzoffii. It is met with not only in all the wooded portions of the Govern- 

 ment of Perirr, but even in the Governments of Simbirsk and Kazan, where Garrulus glan- 

 darius also occurs, but is much rarer than the present species ; and I may here remark that I 

 never met with Garrulus glandarius in the Ural. In the Government of Perm the present species 

 of Jay inhabits the conifer-woods only, except in the south-eastern portion of that Government 

 and in the Government of Ufa, where it is more generally to be met with in the oak and other 

 non-evergreen woods. In the summer I did not meet with it in the birch-woods of the districts 

 of Shadrinsk and Cheliabiansk, Government of Orenburg ; but it is common as far as the Nijnito- 

 chilsky zavod (works), though rarer in the Bogoslaffsky Ural, and much less numerous than the 

 Nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes)." 



To the southward this Jay extends into the Altai range, from which it was first described 

 by Eversmann, and to the eastward through Siberia into Japan. According to the best known 

 and most reliable of the Siberian travellers, it appears to be the common species found in that 

 country. Von Middendorff observed large numbers in the forests between Malmysch and Kungur 

 in the middle of December, and again between Atschinsk and Krasnojarsk, but not further to 

 the eastward; Radde obtained it at Lake Baikal, from near Irkutsk, and in the Bureja moun- 

 tains ; Von Schrenck observed it all through the Amoor country to the coast, and also on the 

 island of Saghalien, everywhere numerous and resident, in spite of the severe cold. In December 

 1854, when the thermometer fell to 26° and 31^° Eeaum., Von Schrenck found them on several 

 occasions dead — as it appeared, killed by the severe cold; but, again, in scarcely less severe 

 weather he noticed many in Liman, on the island of Saghalien, and all along the Tymy river. 

 He observed that near the Nikolajeffsk Post they frequented the mixed conifer and non-evergreen 



