Young birds are streaked above and below as in other species; they may be distinguished from those of cinereus by the rufous being confined to the interscapular region, the same as in the adult.
The type skin of Junco dorsalis of Dr. Henry (see foot-note to synoptical table, p. 580) differs mainly in having the whole upper mandible entirely black, as in J. cinereus; and, as in the latter, the jugulum is pale ash, fading gradually into the white of the abdomen, instead of deep ash abruptly defined. It is very probably, as suggested by Mr. Ridgway, a hybrid with J. cinereus.
Habits. This species was first discovered and described by Dr. Woodhouse from specimens obtained by him among the San Francisco Mountains in Arizona. When procured, it was feeding in company with the Junco oregonus and various species of Parus. Its habits appeared to be very similar to those of the western Snowbird, as well as to those of the common J. hyemalis.
Dr. Coues states that he found this bird a not very common winter resident at Fort Whipple, where its times of arrival and departure, as well as its general habits, were identical with those of J. oregonus, with which it very freely associated. From this we may naturally infer that in New Mexico and Arizona it appears only as a winter visitant, and that in summer it goes elsewhere to breed. Its summer resorts, as well as our knowledge of its breeding-habits, nest, and eggs, remain to be determined, or are only imperfectly known. It evidently retires to the highlands and to mountain regions to breed, and probably has a much more extended habitat than that of which we now have any knowledge. Upon this problem Mr. Ridgway’s observations have already shed some valuable and suggestive light. He met with this bird only among the pine woods of the Wahsatch Mountains, where, however, it was a very common bird, and where it was also breeding. Its manners and notes were scarcely different from those of J. oregonus. It is, however, a shyer bird than the latter, and its song, which is only a simple trill, is rather louder than that of either the hyemalis or the oregonus.
Dr. Coues writes me that both “the Gray-head and the Oregon Snowbirds are common species about Fort Whipple in winter, arriving about the middle of October, and remaining in numbers until early in April, when they thin off, although some may usually be observed during the month, and even a part of the next. Oregonus far outnumbers caniceps. So far as I could see, their habits are precisely the same as those of the eastern Snowbird. During snow-storms they used to come familiarly about our quarters, and I once captured several of both species, enticing them into a tent in which some barley had been strewn, and having the flap fixed so that it could be pulled down with a string in a moment. They always associated together, and once, on firing into a flock, I picked up a number of each kind, and one Junco hyemalis. The latter can only be considered a straggler in this region, although I secured three specimens one winter.”
This species was very rare in Colorado, according to Mr. Aiken, in the winter of 1871-72, but became common in March, and a few remained up to the 3d of May. No females of this species were observed by him.
Mr. J. A. Allen mentions first meeting with this species at an elevation of seven thousand feet, and from that height it was common, on the slopes of Mount Lincoln, to the extreme limit of the timber line.
Genus POOSPIZA, Cabanis.
Poospiza, Cabanis, Wiegmann’s Archiv, 1847, I, 349. (Type, Emberiza nigro-rufa, D’Orb., or Pipilo personata, Sw.)
