| OCR Text |
Show 1876.] BLUE CROWS OF AMERICA. 269 C. nana and C. pumilo, and partakes to some extent of the character of both, in having the crescentic white frontal and superciliary marks of the latter, and the throat coloured as in the former species. It is probably the representative in Costa Rica of the Guatemalan C. pu-milio and the Mexican C. nana. 2. CYANOCITTA BEECHEII (Vig.): Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 39. There are three somewhat similar species of Cyanocitta of a uniform black below, two only of which are inserted in the list in our • Nomenclator' under the names C. beecheii and C. crassirostris These three birds may be readily distinguished as follows:- a. Frontis crista tenui elongata nigra 1. sanblasiana. b. Frontis plumis brevibus erectis, crista nulla. a'. Major: dorso laste caeruleo, naribus plumis frontalibus omnino tectis 2. beecheii. b'. Minor: dorsoviridi-cyaneo, naribus plumis frontalibus dimidio tectis 3. germana. The synonymy of these species should stand as follows .- CYANOCITTA SANBLASIANA. Geai de San Bias, Neboux, Rev. Zool. 1840, pp. 290, 323. Pica sanblasiana, Lafr. Mag. de Zool. 1842, Ois. t. 28. Cyanocorax de San-Bias, Prev et Desmurs,Voy.' Venus,' v. p. 200. Cissilopha sanblasiana, Bp. Consp. i. p. 380; Lawrence, Mem. Boston Soc. N. H. ii. p. 284. " Cyanurusgeoffroii, Bp." Gray, Hand-list, ii. p. 4, et in Mus. Brit. Hab. Western Mexico: San Bias (Neboux); Acapulco (Leclancheri) ; Plains of Colima, Manzanilla Bay and Las Trochas (Xantus). Mus. S.G., Acad. Philad., Brit. Except as regards its thin frontal crest,this bird does not differ materially in form from its allies; and we see no reason for making a genus of it, as proposed by Bonaparte. The species is rare in European collections. Messrs. Salvin and Godman's specimen is one of Xantus's collection from the plains of Colima, and was presented to them by the Smithsonian Institution. There is a single mounted example in the Gallery of the British Museum, marked C. geoffroyi. In the Jardin des Plantes there is also one mounted specimen of this species. It should be noticed that the figure of this bird in the ' Magasin de Zoologie' gives the bill yellow, showing that in this species, as in its two allies, this is a variable character, probably depending on sex. californicus. Again, the type of Cyanurus, Sw., is not Garrulus cristatus, as given in the above mentioned work, p. 271. This error was caused by M r . G*. E.. Gray's unauthorized assumption that the first species in any author's bst must necessarily be his type. But Swainson himself tells us that the first three species which he mentions (i.e. C. cristatus, C. stelleri, and C. sordidus) are "aberrant," and that the "typical" species are only found in the "tropics of America and India." It is obvious therefore that Cyanurus, Sw. (1831)= Cyanocorax, Boie (1826), as stated by Strickland I. s. c, and that Cyanocitta is the proper generic name for the "Blue Jays " of America, as used by us in our "Nomenclator." |
