172 liULLl liN iVl, UiMliiD STATICS NATIONAL MUSEUM 



individuals, which appear to the observer to be weaker ones, rush in to 

 snatch morsels while the feeder tears loose another or pursues another 

 bird. While feeding, these magpies often produce throaty songs, like 

 pleasant squeals. Others squawk as they watch but do not sing. 



Magpies exhibit the same sort of nervousness shown by smaller birds 

 when they forage over open ground, and they commonly rush off at 

 intervals to perch in trees or bushes. One morning 23 of them were 

 foraging in a recently planted grainfield. When something disturbed 

 them all flew nearly simultaneously into willows near a creek. If not 

 badly frightened, some lit on fence posts instead. Usually they began to 

 return to the field within 45 seconds. An occasional bird, however, 

 dropped to forage in a pasture on the opposite side of the creek. Gen- 

 erally when two or more birds flew up, the whole flock rose, but one 

 bird's leaving did not cause them to follow. Fewer and fewer returned 

 to the field after each flight until the whole flock was foraging in the 

 pasture. 



Storage of food by magpies is noted regularly. It occurs oftenest in 

 winter but has been observed also at other times of the year. Storage 

 takes place usually in shallow pits dug by the magpie in the top layer 

 of soil, but crevices among limbs of trees may be used too. The objects 

 most often stored, at least in one locality, are acorns, but carcasses of 

 small animals and left-over pieces of food may be stored also. Nearly 

 always the cache is covered over with stems of grass or leaves and is so 

 carefully hidden as to be nearly invisible. It may be found by a person 

 only after marking the spot well. On occasion some object may be 

 carried for a long time, as long as half an hour, and then buried, or it 

 may be placed in the open on top of the ground and left. An item being 

 carried may be laid on the ground while the bird examines or eats some 

 other object. Acorns may be buried entire without the shell being 

 opened or they may be partly eaten first. Whether magpies return to a 

 cache once it has been hidden has not been observed, but they have 

 been seen raiding the stores of other birds, always shortly after they 

 were covered. 



In some years acorns provide a large share of the yellow-billed mag- 

 pie's food for several months beginning in mid-September. Live oaks 

 and valley oaks provide most of the ones eaten on the Hastings Reser- 

 vation. Sometimes the acorns are picked up from the ground, but oftener 

 they are taken directly from the tree. The acorn is then carried to the 

 top of some fence post or to a limb in another tree, where it is held 

 underfoot and pounded until the shell is broken and the desired portion 

 of the kernel is removed. Normally the acorn is carried with the small 

 end pointing ahead and only one is taken, but sometimes it is turned, 



