AMERICAN MAGPIE 153 



eastward at a considerable height, perhaps between 3,000 and 5,000 feet. 

 The birds were unrecognizable until glasses were trained on them, and 

 at least 50 were counted. 



At numerous places in the mountains the fall movement is upward 

 to high levels. Saunders (1921) reports that in Montana a fall move- 

 ment into the mountains takes place in October at the time of the first 

 cold weather and snowstorms. The birds have been seen as high as 

 8,000- and 9,000-foot altitudes. Skinner (MS.) points out that in Yel- 

 lowstone National Park magpies appear in August and September and 

 are numerous in wnnter, especially in stormy weather. Packard sends 

 the information that in the vicinity of Estes Park, Colo., magpies are 

 occasionally found at timberline or above, in September or October, 

 when small flocks visit the alpine meadows and feed on grasshoppers. 



Stir another type of magpie movement is that mentioned by Bendire 

 (1895), who records that along the eastern border of its range the 

 magpie occasionally wanders eastward late in fall and in winter. He 

 thought that the birds were driven away from their usual haunts by 

 scarcity of food or the severe storms that so frequently occur in those 

 sections of the country. An especially well-marked movement of this 

 sort took place in the Missouri Valley in the fall of 1921. Record of 

 exceptional magpie movements that year were reported for Iowa, 

 Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, and, farther north, in Manitoba. The 

 birds sometimes go beyond the ordinary limits of their range on the 

 pouth too. Great flocks of magpies late in October 1919 came into Death 

 Valley, Calif., from the north. They had never been seen there before, 

 and they gradually drifted away until few v/ere left by the end of 

 December. 



A possible indicator of rate of travel in these fall movements was re- 

 ported by Mrs. Bailey (1928), who observed a flock of 17 magpies at a 

 10,000-foot altitude in New Mexico. Two days later the same flock 

 was seen 5 miles farther up the valley at 10,700 feet. 



A single recovery of a banded black-billed magpie, reported by Lincoln 

 (1927), gives information concerning the direction and extent of move- 

 ment. The bird, banded at I.aramie, Wyo., on May 30, 1925, was re- 

 covered on January 14, 1926, at Rosita, Colo. The latter locality is 

 approximately 220 miles from the station of banding and is almost 

 directly south of it. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — Alaska and the Western United States and Canada ; casual 

 in the eastern parts of the North American Continent; nonmigratory, 

 but given to erratic wanderings. 



