308 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



by their shrill cry of vH-ar whack, wt-Sr whack; the last note short, but 

 the first two notes long and high pitched like the caterwaul of a cat." 

 Ralph Hoffmann (1927) writes it differently: "Besides the mewing call 

 queh-a-eh, given in flight, they utter, when perched, a continual queh, 

 queh, queh." Mr. Zimmer (1911) describes their note as a "high, 

 nasal 'kree-kree-* or 'karee-karee-', repeated rapidly many times in suc- 

 cession or long drawn out." Bendire (1895) says that some of the 

 notes "are almost as harsh as the 'chaar' of the Clarke's Nutcracker, 

 others partake much of the gabble of the Magpie, and still others re- 

 semble more those of the jays." 



Field marks. — A dull-blue, crowlike bird, with a short tail and a long, 

 slender bill, could hardly be anything else but a pinyon jay, especially 

 if seen flying about, or feeding on the ground, in flocks. The voice 

 is also distinctive, if one is familiar with it ; and it is very noisy. 



Enemies. — The pinyon jay may be something of a nest robber, but 

 it also has been preyed upon itself occasionally. Mr. Cameron (1907) 

 saw the young disappear at intervals, one after the other, soon after 

 hatching, from a nest that he was watching. They were hatched on 

 June 16, and by July 2 only one fully fledged bird remained in the 

 nest. Being at a loss to account for the disappearance of the young, 

 he sat down to watch, and after a long wait he saw a pair of northern 

 shrikes fly straight to the nest tree. Fortunately for the surviving 

 youngster, the parent jays were at home; they attacked the shrikes and 

 drove them away. 



Fall. — As soon as the young are strong on the wing they begin to 

 gather into larger flocks than ever and start on their erratic fall and 

 winter wanderings. These huge flocks, numbering hundreds and some- 

 times a thousand or more, swoop over the foothills and open country 

 in a rolling mass, the birds in the rear overtaking the leaders and all 

 screaming their loudest. Their movements are not governed by climatic 

 conditions but by the scarcity or abundance of the food supply. Even 

 where pine nuts and cones and cedar berries are abundant, the supply 

 is soon exhausted by the many mouths to be fed, and the flocks move 

 on to seek new fields, with hundreds of eyes on the alert to detec.t the 

 presence of any available food supply. When there is a scarcity of 

 pinyon nuts, or other normal food, or when they have exhausted the 

 supply, the flocks sweep down on the grainfields and may do considerable 

 damage to late crops of beans, com, or other cereals. All through the 

 fall and winter, flocks may be seen coming and going, but they may be 

 very abundant during one season and entirely absent from the same 

 region the next season; or they may be there in hundreds one day and 

 all gone the next 



