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84 THE CONDOR Vol. XX nomenclature of Per?soreus obscurus. In the case of the Oregon Jay it will be noted that the matter is complicated through the fact that the type locality of P.o. obscurus is at Shoalwater Bay, Washington, about midway of the longitu- dinal range of the subspecies. Specimens from this region consequently do not ?xhibit the extremes of size or color characters shown by those to the northward or to the 'southward. Consequently, if it is considered desirable to split the race it is doubly hard to determine where to draw the line. The small size of the Humboldt Bay birds is apparently just as good grounds for the naming of a local race from that point as is the dark color of P.o. rath- buni. If this were done, however, what is there left of P.o. obscurus but an ill- defined intergradient between the two extremes ? This, of course, is.really what typical examples of obscurus are, but the first name having been applied to a bird from this intermediate region it certainly seems best to let it cover the whole variable coast race. Another point is involved in the relegation by Dr. Oberholser of the Van- couver Island jays to the subspecies Perisoreus o. griseus, upon the basis of speci- mens collected by the present writer and previously reported upon by him (Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool., vol. 10, 1912, p. 48). In the paper cited these birds were called P.o. obscurus, with comment upon certain peculiarities exhibited by the series, in which course due regard was paid to the several 'questions involved. These birds, according to Dr. Oberholser, are in color similar to griseus, but are somewhat smaller than that race, being of about the same size as his P.o. rath- buni. He is thns inclined here to place greater weight upon characters of color than of size. I do not agree with him, considering that these birds probably ex- emplify a final stepin the general increase in size northward of P.o. obscurus. As to color, the adults of the Vancouver Island series are either in badly worn plumage or else are molting and not fully feathered. Their apparently paler coloration than some freshly molted and fully leathered birds from the mainland coast region may or may not be due to their imperfect condition. Ju- veniles from Vancouver Island are slightly darker colored than examples of griseus in comparable plumage from the Warner Mountains, California. At any rate, even should fully leathered Vancouver Island birds prove to be uniformly pale colored, I still do not believe they should be considered the same as Perisoreus obscurus. griseus from the arid ?nterior. Such a course would be as much a mistake, and a comparable one, as the error now given sanction by the A. O. U. Check-List (1910, D. 266), where the range of "Junco hyemalis connec- tens" (-----Junco oreganus shufeldfi), as described, includes Vancouver Island. The jays do hot range over the whole island, but, during the nesting season at least, are restricted to the higher mountains. Any peculiarity in their appear- ance shonld be recognized as the probable result of isolation or environment; it seems to me utterly futile to attempt to link together races so remote on the basis of slight and questionable resemblances in some particulars. In this connection attention should again be directed to the exactly comparable case of the North- west Bewick Wren, cited earlier in this paper. To sum up, it is the writer's opinion, in view of the foregoing arguments. that the name Perisoreus o. obsc?rus should be applied %o the coastal race extend- ing from Humboldt Bay to Vancouver Island, and P.o. griseus to the form of the arid interior---exactly the treatment accorded the two subspecles by Ridgway (Birds N. and Mid. Am., ?n, 1904, pp. 372-374). Berkeley, California, December 3l, 1917.