CROWS, JAYS, MAGPIES, ETC. 283 



the Black Hills and eastern slopes of the rocky Mountains to the Pacific. 

 Casual from Dakota throuoh Kansas. Missouri, a'nd Arkansas. 



Nest. — In evergreens S to 40 feet from the ground, composed of twigs 

 and white sage, bound together by strips of inner bai'k, lined with fine 

 strips of bark, grasses, and pine needles. Eggs : 3 to 5, pale green, mi- 

 nutely and sparingly marked with brown, gray, and lavender, either most 

 heavily around the larger end, evenly distributed, or with the lower half 

 unspotted. 



Food. — In winter, seeds of conifers ; at other seasons, berries, lupine 

 seeds, insect larvfe, butterflies, grasshoppers, beetles, and the destructive 

 black cricket. The young are fed on hulled pine seeds. 



AVhat ail iudependent, positive character the nutcracker is! In the 

 mountains tlie sound of his rattling kar'r'r, kar'r'r, as he comes 

 flying in with strong, free flight, leailing a black and white liveried 

 band through the treetops, always stirs the blood with memories 

 and anticipations, for he is associated with the mountain-tops, where 

 the conies bleat and the glacial streams flow only when the sun is 

 high. 



Living mainly on the crests of the ranges, the birds fly to the 

 high peaks to get the first rays of the sun, and when warmed go for 

 food and water to lower slopes. Their method of getting down is 

 startling at first sight. Launching out from a peak with bill pointed 

 downward and wings closed they drop like a bullet for a thousand 

 feet to the brook where they wish to drink. Sometimes they make 

 the descent at one long swoop, at other times in a series of pitches, 

 each time checking their fall by opening their wings and letting 

 themselves curve upward before the next straight drop. They fall 

 with such a high rate of speed that when they open their wings 

 there is an explosive burst which eclK^es from the canyon walls. 



On Mt. Hood the nutcrackers stay with the Oregon jays around 

 Cloud Cap Inn, under the peak. On Mt. Shasta a few of them come 

 into the fir belt as low as 5750 feet, but while we were there the 

 majority we saw were with the alpine hemlocks and the dwarf pines 

 of timberline, from 7750 to 8.'>00 feet. They ate green caterpillars 

 in the hemlocks and caught grasshoppers on the neighboring rocky 

 slojx's. In |)laces they are seen flying about among the dwarf pines 

 carrying the cones in their bills to branches where they can get at 

 the seeds by hanunering olT the scales. In the Sierra Nevada in fall 

 they feed largely on the seeds of Pi huh inontirold, and at such times 

 their movements are irregular, depending on the supply of pine 

 cones. When feeding it is amusing to watch them. As you walk 

 along the edge of the tiniber a flash of white and the sound of flajv 

 ping wings overhead call your attention in time to see the bird 

 light with a jet of tin; tail and a jerk of the wings on a terminal 

 cluster of cones. He hardlv gets his balance so that his fiirure 



