“Almost invariably a flock alights near the summit of a hill, and passes down its side rapidly, all the birds keeping quite near to each other, and individuals frequently alighting on the ground, when their attention is attracted by their favorite food. They appear to be very social and keep up a continued twittering note. I have occasionally seen them flying in close flocks, high in the air, and apparently passing from one mountain or hill to another.
“This bird, so far as I have seen, is exclusively a mountain species, as I have never observed it in the plains or the bottom lands, which are the usual haunts of its relatives, Steller’s and the California Jay. It differs, however, from them in many respects, and is the only species of these birds that I have never met with singly or in parties of half-a-dozen individuals only. I have always seen it in large flocks. Its food appears to be exclusively reptiles.”
C. B. R. Kennerly, M. D., a young naturalist of great promise, who was attached as Zoologist to Lieut. Whipple’s party, for surveying a route for a railroad to the Pacific Ocean, brought fine specimens of the bird now before us, in the large and highly interesting collection of birds made by him in the countries traversed by the expedition. To Dr. Kennerly we are indebted for the following notice of this species:
“During the march of our party from the Rio Grande to the Sierra Madre, we saw this bird nearly every day. At that season, which was November, large flocks were constantly found in the vicinity of the running streams, which on being frightened from the low bushes, circled around, loudly uttering their peculiar cry, and rising higher and higher, until they reached the summit of some tree on the rocky hills. When settled, they continued their discordant notes, which somewhat resemble some of those of the common Cat-bird (Mimus felivox).”
The Prince Maximilian’s specimens of this bird were obtained on Maria’s river, one of the tributaries of the Upper Missouri, in the northern part of the possessions of the United States in Western America, and much farther north than it has been observed by either of the late naturalists. It probably inhabits a very extensive district, the limits of which cannot at present be conjectured.
The figure in the present plate is that of the adult male, and is about two-thirds of the natural size.
DESCRIPTION AND TECHNICAL OBSERVATIONS.
Genus Gymnokitta. De Wied in Bonap. Consp. Av., p. 382. (1850.)
General form, rather short, robust; bill, straight, wide at base, somewhat rounded and flattened at the point, ridge of the under mandible (or gonys) very distinctly ascending; wings, rather long, first quill very short, fourth, longest, but only slightly longer than the third and fifth; tail, moderate, containing twelve feathers; legs and feet, strong.
Gymnokitta cyanocephala. (De Wied). Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus. De Wied, Travels in North America (1839, Coblenz). Cyanocorax Cassinii. McCall, Proc. Acad. Philada., V. p. 216. (1851.)