134 TIIE CONI)CR VoL. X

(Cyanocilla s. carbonarea) of Marin County, beiug strikingly similar to the Blue- fronted Jay (Cyanocilla s. frontal/s) of the Sierras. This is especially strange from the fact that the redwood and Douglas spruce forest of western Sonoma County is practically a continuation of the fir forest of the more northern coast, differing comparatively slightly in humidity and temperature from that part of it where the dark form of stdleri is found. Apparently there should be a slight, regular, continuous gradation from the stelleri of the North to the form named by Grinnell- carbonacea or Coast Jay, which extends from MONTEREY HERMIT THRUSH ON NEST; SONOiMA COUNT CALII"ORNIA, MAY 17, 190, Marin down the coast to Monterey County. But instead 'of this on the Sonoma coast we find a big break, and here, al- most on the northern boundary of carbonacea --some sixty or se;,enty miles north of San Fran- cisco, as the crow flies-- is a form closely resem- bling, if not identical with the.fronlalis of the Sierra region, much lighter in color than the form north of its habitat and of that but a few miles south of it, tho the character of the cli- mate and forest which it inhabits has changed but little either way. Breed- ing specimens of this light form were obtained, and a nest with young discovered. A couple of days after our arrival in this local- ity we were joined by H. H. Sheldon and his friend "Fy" Taylor, who had come on a fish- ing and oological exped- ition. On the morning of May I5 the boys start- ed in a buggy for a trip by way of private ranch roads to the North Fork of the Gualala, Sheldon kindly volun- teering to take my collecting pistol and try to pick up a few desiderata on the way. When about half way down the grade from the top of the ridge to the South Fork he espied a desirable specimen and jumped out to try and get it. A few yards from the road he ran into a Monterey Hermit Thrush (Hylocic/la g. slevini) in plain sight on its nest, which proved to contain but one egg. The nest was built in a large dead branch, some twenty feet long, of a bay tree, which had apparantly been broken from its parent by the weight of snow in an unusual snowstorm that oc-