316 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



on September 22 "held in its throat 72 ripe seeds of the pinon, com- 

 prising a volume of about one cubic inch." Another female taken 

 September 25 "held in her distended throat 65 mature seeds of the 

 white-bark pine, and some fragments, all together weighing 10 grams 

 or close to 7 per cent of the weight of the bird, which was 146 grams." 



It eats the seeds of several other species of pines and even firs, 

 extracting the seeds from the cones with its crowbarlike beak. Acorns 

 and the berries of the cedar or juniper are included in the diet. Mr. 

 Skinner (1916) says: "Sometimes they will tear the cone to pieces 

 even while the cone is still fast to the branch, often perched at the very 

 tip of a bending branch, or even underneath, cjinging in a manner 

 creditable to a chickadee or a nuthatch. More often the cone is de- 

 tached and carried away to a strong limb where it is held by one foot 

 while the bird strikes strong, downward blows at it with its pickax- 

 like bill. At times the bird will secure a seed at every second stroke 

 and at the same time tear the cone to shreds." 



J. A. Munro tells me that Clark's nutcrackers were noted commonly 

 in a valley in British Columbia on May 17 and 19, 1940. "In one 

 plac.e a flock of twenty-five (plus) rose from a field in which spring 

 wheat was just appearing. It seemed likely they were feeding on the 

 sprouted grain." 



Mr. Bradbury (1917b) reports that "the stomachs of the old birds 

 examined always contained masses of pinyon shells, this far exceeding 

 in bulk the mixture of insects and meat of pinyon nuts, about 75 per cent 

 nut food and 25 per cent insects and other matter." One nutcracker was 

 seen feeding on the remains of a deer. 



Claude T. Barnes (MS.) thus describes the feeding habits of Clark's 

 nutcracker, as observed at an altitude of 7,050 feet in the Wasatch 

 Mountains of Utah: "Near me an ancient, gnarled limber pine (Pinus 

 fiexilis) stood on a wind-exposed knoll, raising a broad, open crown 

 on a brown-plated trunk 2 feet in thickness. The ground beneath it 

 was strewn with subcylindrical cones, 5 inches long and 3 inches in 

 diameter at the base. One of the nutcrackers flew to the tree above me, 

 alighting on the outer tip of an upper branch, where a cone was sus- 

 pended. Standing above the cone and working almost upside down, 

 it pecked with its strong, cylindrical bill at the base of the cone, 

 clinging the while to the branch with its large toes and sharp, much 

 curved claws. Pecking eagerly every two or three seconds, it at times 

 almost tilted over head first, but without releasing the toe holds, 

 fluttered back to balance. Finally, after about 40 pecks and probes at 

 the pencil-thick stalk of the cone, the cone began to fall ; whereupon it 

 clasped the cone with its bill and flew to a thick horizontal limb below. 



