The Slate-colored Junco 



heavily streaked below on a dull buffy ground. Length of adult male, 152.4-165 

 (6.00-6.50); wing 79 (3. 11); tail 66 (2.60); bill 10.9 (.43); tarsus 21 (.83). Females 

 average smaller. 



Recognition Marks. — Sparrow size; nearly uniform slaty coloration; concave- 

 ended outline of pectoral slate in contrast with white of underparts; does not show 

 contrast between head and back, as compared with the Junco oreganus group. 



Nesting. — Does not breed in California. Nest and eggs much as in succeeding 

 species. 



General Range. — Eastern and northern North America, breeding from the 

 mountains of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts and the northern tier of states west 

 to Minnesota, north to Labrador, the Arctic Coast and the valleys of the Yukon and 

 Kowak River in Alaska; south in winter throughout the eastern states to the Gulf 

 Coast, and casually to New Mexico, Arizona, and California. 



Occurrence in California. — A casual winter visitant practically throughout 

 the State, but chiefly on the lower mountain ranges. 



Authorities. — Jeffries, Auk, vol. vi., 1889, p. 221 (Santa Barbara) ; Bishop, 

 N. Am. Fauna, no. 19, 1900, p. 85 (Alaska; nests and eggs, habits, etc.); Judd, U. S. 

 Dept. Agric, Biol. Surv. Bull., no. 15, 1901, p. 80 (food); Willett, Pac. Coast Avifauna, 

 no. 7, 1912, p. 81 (occur, in so. Calil.) ; Grinnell, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 11, 1915, p. 

 119 (summary of occurrences in Calif.) ; Dwight, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xxxviii., 

 1918, p. 285, col. pis. (distr., variation, crit.). 



SO FATAL is the human tendency to generalize that most of us 

 think of the Pacific Coast of North America as a north and south line, 

 and recall Alaska vaguely as somewhere to the north of us. Yet St. 

 Michael, at the mouth of the Yukon, is west of Honolulu; and a Slate- 

 colored Junco raised on the Seward Peninsula would have to travel due 

 east at least forty degrees (and a trifle of twenty-three degrees south) 

 in order to winter as far east as California. What wonder, then, that 

 of the great bulk of Alaskan Snow-birds, pursuing in autumn a leisurely 

 east by southeasterly course for the eastern states, a few should become 

 deflected to the southward too soon! Anyhow, this happens so often 

 that we have given up trying to keep count of the "winter occurrences" 

 of the Slate-colored Junco. 



Juncoes are highly sociable creatures, especially in winter. Other 

 migrants afford congenial company; and the birds do not make as big 

 a fuss over a different shade of color of the foreparts as we do. It is 

 noticeable, therefore, that most of the northern Juncoes seen occur 

 either singly or in small groups, in company with the California thurberi. 

 There is nothing in behavior and little enough in appearance to dis- 

 tinguish the two forms; and there are, doubtless, a thousand unnoticed 

 birds in the State to one that catches the eye of a practiced bird-man. 



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