Mar., 1910 
63 
THE STATUS OF THE CALIFORNIA BI-COLORED BLACKBIRD 
By JOSEPH MAILLIARD 
WITH TWO PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR 
T WO species of a genus must possess at least some one characteristic which is 
of an absolutely distinct type, form, size, or color in each — no matter how 
slight it may be, provided that of the one species does not overlap or inter- 
grade with in any degree, that of the other. This characteristic may be the meas- 
urement of some certain part or parts, the color of some particular feather or of all 
the feathers, or the shape of them, no matter how slight the difference provided it is 
unmistakable and permanent. If there is any proof of intergradation the specific 
difference falls to the ground, and the more or less varying forms are, for want of 
a better system, at present described as subspecies. 
The status of the genus Agelaius does not seem to be a very settled one, and 
it looks so far as if an insufficient number of specimens — or perhaps it would be 
better to say specimens from too few localities — had been compared to define the 
forms with certainty. 
The following analysis of the descriptions of the various forms of Agelaius 
was originally made out by the author of this article for his own assistance in study- 
ing the group and with the view of making clear the subject as represented. But 
it is so difficult to approach this matter unaided by something of the sort that it 
seemed advisable to embody this analysis in the text of this paper. Absolutely 
nothing in it, however, is meant as a criticism of the work done by others, and all 
quotations are made for the sole purpose of getting at the facts. 
This genus has of late proved extremely interesting to me, but it has been 
impossible to make the descriptions in the different authorities at my command fit 
all the cases under observation. First came the difficulty of saving which speci- 
mens taken in southern California belonged to the form Agelaius p. neutralis (sup- 
posedly the southern California form), and which did not. Then a greater difficul- 
ty arose in defining where the ranges of A. gubernator calif ornicus and A. phoeni- 
ceus neutralis adjoined in central California. As practically all the other authori- 
ties to which I have had access coincide with Mr. Ridgway, who apparently has 
gone into the matter further than the others, I have selected his "Birds of North 
and Middle America”, Bulletin of the U. S. National Museum, No. 50, as the best 
to follow r in the endeavor to solve these problems. 
But let us see how much this work will help us out. In the key to the species 
of Agelaius , p. 322, Part II, leaving out those paragraphs which apply only to A. 
tricolor paragraph dd applies to all that follow, so we wall commence at paragraph 
e which concerns only the gubernator group. This says "middle wing coverts 
mostly black: or else wing 130 or more”, the number referring of course to milli- 
meters. As the paragraphs f, g , and gg apply to the other forms of gubernator 
only we will not consider them at the present moment. 
Now, in the first place, wffiat does the expression "middle wing coverts mostly 
black” mean ? Are most of these coverts individually and entirely black ? Or are 
all these individual feathers mostly black ? From the text in the actual descriptions 
it seems proper to adopt the latter interpretation, tho some of the specimens under 
observation have one or more of the innermost coverts wholly or partly black with 
no black whatever on any of the others. Then comes "or else wing 130 or more”. 
In this case the word else can mean either that less than half (numerically) of the 
feathers of the middle wing coverts are entirely black, that but few or none are 
