The Woodhouse Jay 



THE question, much agitated of late, as to whether the Wood- 

 house Jay may be only a subspecies of the californica type, is one which 

 cannot be thrashed out in the closet. Differences sufficient to entitle 

 a bird-type to specific recognition invariably record themselves in voice 

 and action, as well as in plumage changes. The history of the race must 

 have been different, and if so, something more than the mere fact of 

 isolation, or incipient change, must be noted in order to establish that 

 historical difference, and to gain for its subject credence as a species. 

 This raises the very question that I am not qualified to answer, viz., 

 Does the Woodhouse Jay differ sufficiently from the California Jay in 

 voice and action to establish the presumption that there has been a 

 markedly divergent history for the two species, and that their recently 

 established occurrence together, upon the east slopes of the Sierras, is 

 only the accidental meeting of two conquering types moving out from 

 independent distributional centers long since established? I do not 

 know, but my very brief acquaintance with woodhousei, in southern 

 Arizona, namely, leads me to think that it does. It seemed to me, fresh 

 from association with californica, that the voice of woodhousei was, in 

 general, notably weaker. And when first heard, the shook shook shook 

 shook note of the W'oodhouse deceived me, momentarily, into entering 

 Long-crested Jay {Cyanocitta stelleri diademata) in my field book. This 

 note occupies a middle position between the characteristic outcry of our 

 stelleri type and a cry of the californica whose resemblance to that of 

 stelleri I had, for lack of that mediating suggestion, never previously 

 noted. This does not mean, of course, that Aphelocoma woodhousei 

 resembles Cyanocitta stelleri in form and plumage in any such fashion as 

 it resembles A. californica; but it does mean, if its significance be allowed, 

 that A . woodhousei, along with C. stelleri, has preserved a certain ancestral 

 tradition, or vocal habit, which californica has well nigh forgotten. 

 These leadings, I take it, are of considerable importance. 



The testimony of the egg is less clear, but in comparing a series of 

 eggs of woodhousei with a like series of californica, I should say that the 

 preponderance of the evidence favors specific recognition. 



For the rest, in his native haunts of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and 

 upper southeastern California, Woodhouse's Jay is the animating spirit 

 of the chaparral, as the California Jay is elsewhere in the State. Only an 

 expert would sense differences between them in the hand or out of it. 



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