290 SINGING BIRDS — OSCINES. 



autumn, swallowing tliem whole in such quantities as almost to suffocate 

 themselves. I also noticed them pecking at dead liark to olitain insects, 

 and flying short distances after them like tlie woodpeckers. When feeding 

 they were veiy shy, scarcely allowing me to get within shooting distance, 

 except hy artifice, and, if they saw me. Hying off to a long distance before 

 alighting. I have always found them wild, except in January, 1854, when 

 a few driven down l)y snow from the Cascade Mountains appeared at Fort 

 Vancouver. They often hang head downwards while extracting the seeds 

 from cones, reminding one of the titmice. They sometimes descend to the 

 groixnd in search of seeds and insects, but probably do not eat animal food 

 so generally as the crows and jays. They have a continuous, flapping, rapid 

 flight, and a loud, harsh cry when flying in the manner of the crows, gener- 

 ally associating in flocks in the autumn. Their similarity to the wood- 

 peckers in habits, especially to Mdanerpes torquatus, with which they live, 

 is sufficient to deceive most oljservers as to their affinities. 



Of their haljits in spring nothing is known, except that Townsend speaks 

 of their building in very high pine-trees. They are in fact almost insepara- 

 ble from these, and only resort to the seeds of sj^ruces, berries, etc., when 

 the supply of pine seeds is exhausted. 



It is doubtful if they ever wander to the coast mountains south of San 

 Francisco. Although in winter they descend to the Coluinliia Paver, they 

 have not been seen at other seasons below an elevation of from hjur to ten 

 thoiisand feet in California. They abound in the Eocky Mountains through- 

 out our limits. 



Near Fort Colville, Washington Territory, Mr. J. K. Lord found this 

 species arriving in May in immense flocks, making a tremendous chattering 

 for about a week, and then pairing off. A nest he saw was in the top of a 

 pine-tree two hundred feet high, which was cut down on the boundary. 

 It was composed of fir-twigs, bark, leaves of pine, and fine root-fibres, with 

 some moss and gray lichen, — very large and shallow. The eggs M'ere about 

 four, of a light Ijluish-green. 



Genus GYMNOKITTA, Maximilian von Wied. 



C'l/mmrhimis, Vr. Jtax. Reise Kurd Araer. II. 1841, 21. (Not of Gray.) (Type, G. cijano- 



crjifmla.) 

 Gi/iimokitia, Pr. Max. "1850," Gray. 

 Ci/anoccphalus, Bonaparte, " 1842." Preoccupied in Botany. 



CtES. Char. Rill olnnrrated, depressed, shorter than the tarsus, longer than the head, 

 without notch, similar to that of Slurnclla in shape. Culmen nearly straight ; conuuissure 



