386 HISTORY OF THE 



show that the good they do overbalances the harm. Various 

 are the ways resorted to by the farmer to not only scare them 

 away, but to destroy them. Notwithstanding- this, tlie cunning, 

 sagacious birds manage to live and thrive in their midst. Thej- 

 are rather gregarious and social in their habits, often assembling 

 together in large flocks, and they select and have common roost- 

 ing places, where they gather from miles and miles around, ar- 

 riving silently at eve, and stealing away at early dawn. Their 

 flights are direct and well sustained. 



Their nests are placed in the forks of trees, in groves and on 

 the timbered bottom lands, thirty to seventy feet from the 

 ground. They are composed of sticks and lined with grasses, 

 fibrous strippings from plants, and hairs. Eggs four or five, 

 1.65x1.20; light to dark green, and irregularly spotted, splashed 

 or blotched with various shades of pale to dark brown and pur- 

 ple, usually the thickest around the larger end; in form, oval 

 to ovate. 



Genus PICICORVUS Bonaparte. 



"Leaden gray color, with black wings and tail; bill longer than the head, 

 ■considerably longer than the tarsus, attenuated, slightly decurved; tip without 

 notch; culmen and commissure curved; gonys straight or slightly concave, as long 

 as the tarsi; nostrils circular, completely covered by a full tuft of incumbent 

 white bristly feathers; tail much shorter than the wings, nearly even, or slightly 

 rounded. Wings pointed, reaching to the tip of the tail; third, fourth and fifth 

 quills longest; tarsi short, scarcely longer than the middle toe, the hind toe and 

 claw very large, reaching nearly to the middle of the middle claw, the lateral 

 toe little shorter. A row of small scales on the middle of the sides of tarsus; 

 color of the single species leaden gray, with black wings and tail." 



Picicorvus columbianus (Wils.). 



CLARK'S NUTCRACKER. 

 PLATE XXV. 



An accidental visitant. Mr. L. L. Jewell, of Irving, kindly 

 sent me for examination a portion of the skin saved from a 

 male bird, shot August 13th, 1888, by Mr. Chas. Netz, near the 

 south line of Marsliall county. 



B. 430. R. 284. C. 344. G. , . U. 491. 



Habitat. The high, coniferous forests of western North 

 America; north to Alaska; south to Arizona; east to the edge 



