The Oregon Juncoes 



No. 51c Point Pinos Junco 



A. O. U. No. 5670". Junco oreganus pinosus Loomis. 



Description. — Adults: Very similar to those of J. 0. oreganus, and matching 

 them fully as to rufescence of back, etc., but black of male possibly a little less intense, 

 especially on throat and chest. Doubtfully different! — merely a sedentary stock 

 occupying the ancient stronghold of the (sub) species oreganus, and exhibiting the two 

 differential characters (really one) of a sedentary form, viz., the shorter wing and tail. 



Nesting. — Nest and eggs much as in preceding form. 



Range. — The Transitional areas of the Santa Cruz district, breeding from San 

 Bruno (Ray) in San Mateo County south to Big Creek (Jenkins), Monterey County, 

 irregularly east in winter at lower levels. The breeding ranges of pinosus and thurberi 

 appear to inosculate deeply upon the northeast. 



Authorities. — Vigors (Fringilla hyemalis). Zoology of Captain Beechey's 

 Voyage, 1839, p. 20; Loomis, Auk, vol. x., 1893, p. 47 (Point Pinos ;orig. desc.) ; ibid., Auk, 

 vol. xi., 1894, p. 265, col. pi.; Kaeding, Bull. Cooper Orn. Club, vol. i, 1899, p. 80 

 (distr., habits, etc.) ; Beat, U. S. Dept. Agric. Biol. Surv. Bull., no. 34, 1910, p. 82 

 (food); Dwight, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xxxviii., 1918, p. 291 (distr., variation, 

 crit.). 



THE RACE pinosus, stranded upon the hills of Monterey and Santa 

 Cruz counties, exemplifies a phenomenon which should be clearly under- 

 stood by the student of western bird-life. If we are to give this ten- 

 dency a name — we may call it chorophily (x<*>qo<;, a place, a definite 

 region, cpiWo, I love). By this we mean that attachment to a given 

 place or region which prevents a bird (or other animal) from forsaking its 

 ancestral home. In the strictest sense the term might apply as well to 

 migrants which repair to definite homes or narrow ranges both in summer 

 and in winter. (For example, we have at Los Colibris a Dwarf Hermit 

 Thrush who returns to us regularly in winter. The Lord knows where he 

 nests, — perhaps on Vancouver Island — but he spends six months on our 

 narrow acre in closer attendance than a [purely hypothetical] house cat.) 

 But for the purposes of our discussion we will confine the term to such 

 species or forms as are not only non-migratory, but which succeed in 

 resisting the migratory impulse manifested by their congeneric and con- 

 specific fellows. The Belding Sparrow, the Salt Marsh Song Sparrow, the 

 Point Pinos Junco are such species. 



The case is all the more remarkable with J. o. pinosus, for the related 

 forms, J. o. thurberi, couesi, and oreganus, have shifted notably within 

 historic times. They are invading the Northland with rapid stride. But 

 J. o. pinosus has found, long since, in the coastal regions of Monterey 

 and Santa Cruz counties, the humid coolness which the species loves. 

 Abundant fogs and towering redwood forests are assured blessings. 

 Wherefore, pinosus will not go questing. 



There is something pathetic in this loyalty on the part of a few birds 



