Mar., 1902. I 
THE CONDOR 
41 
Status of Cyanocitta stelleri carbonacea Grinnell. 
BY WALTER K. FISHER. 
T his subspecies was described by Joseph GrinnelR from the Santa Cruz Mts., 
Santa Clara Co., California, and was subsequently rejected by the A. O. U. 
Committee' on Nomenclature*. 
Through the kindness of Mr. Robert Ridgway and Dr. C. Hart Merriam I 
have had the opportunity of examining all the material in the National Museum 
collection, and in that of the Biological Survey, including the types of Cyanocitta 
stelleri annectens, Cyanocitta stelleri carlottce, and Cyanocitta stelleri /rontalis. 
Added to this is a small but pertinent collection forwarded by Mr. Grinnell, and 
a specimen from Mt. Shasta kindly loaned by Mr. John H. Sage, Especially 
valuable is a series of eleven birds from Vancouver Island, from the following 
localities: Victoria 2, Cadboro Bay 2, Goldstream 3, Departure Bay i, Comox 3. 
Corvus stelleri was described by Gmelin in Sy sterna Naturae I, 1788, the type 
locality being clearly stated as Nootka Sound, Vancouver Id., B. C. (“in sinu 
Natka Americae borealis.” 1. c. p. 370.). Mr. Grinnell in lieu of specimens from 
Vancouver Id., took Sitka birds for comparison. Nootka 
SIMILARITY OF Sound is situated in n. lat. 49° 30' on tfie west coast of the 
island, considerably north of the middle, not “near the 
ALASKAN AND VAN- southern end” as Mr. Grinnell states. The series of birds 
from Vancouver Id. is really intermediate, as one would 
COUVER ID. BIRDS, expect, between the Sitka birds, which are as dark as any 
from Alaska, and the Oregon-California series {carbonacea). 
The Vancouver Id. birds are however so close to the Sitka form that the two are 
practically the same. The slight difference is seen only when a series of the one is 
compared closely with the other. The two agree substantially in: shade of back, 
peculiar blue of underparts, amount of black on breast, and size. One specimen 
from Victoria in the extreme southern end of the island is aberrant in the shade 
of the underparts and the extent of black thereon, in which it approaches carbona- 
cea. The difference seems to be purely individual. 
On the other hand the birds from the coast of California, and from western 
Oregon are at once separable from those of Vancouver, Id., both individually 
and ‘en masse.’ In the Alaskan and Vancouver Island 
DIFFERENCE BE- birds the black of the head extends caudad over the breast, 
, while in the series from California and Oregon this same 
TWEEN BIRDS FROM marking as a rule does not go beyond the juguluni. In the 
northern bird the black encroaches more onto the sides. 
CALIFORNIA AND The black of the throat and breast of stelleri merges gradu- 
ally into the blue of the abdomen and suflfu.ses this blue 
OREGON AND THOSE with a light wash, so as to make it relatively much darker 
than in carbonacea, and more toward a dull Antwerp-verd- 
FROM VANCOUVER ID. iter blue3. In carbonacea however, the back, throat, and 
jugulum, instead of being a warm black, are usually more of 
a brownish slate, and the transition into the blue of the lower breast and abdo- 
men is rather abrupt. This blue is distinctly lighter than that of stelleri, and has 
little or none of the dilution with gray. from the jugulum. It is nearer the shade 
of blue of frontalis tho more intense, namely cerulean blue with a large propor- 
tion of Antwerp in its makeup. Occasionally a carbonacea will ‘individually’ tend 
iCONDOR 11 , Nov., I900, 127. 
zAuk XVHI, July 1901, 312. “Not considered worthy of recognition by name. 
3T0 get Vci^ general shade it is necessary to observe the bird at arm’.s length or even at a greater distance. .See 
Ridgway’s Nomenclature of Colors, pi. IX. 
