CROWS AND JAYS 



233 



CLARKE'S NUTCRACKER 



Nucifraga Columbiana ( ll'Uson) 



A. (). L.'. Number 491 



Other Names. — Clarke's Crow; Meat Hird ; Camp 

 Robber. 



General Description. — Length. 12'.. inches. Body, 

 gray; wings, black. Wings, long and pointed, and, 

 when folded, reaching to the end of tail; tail, a little 

 over one-half length of wing; bill, cylindrical. 



Color. — Xasal tufts, front portion of forehead, eye- 

 lids, forward portion of cheek region, and chin, white, 

 usually soiled or tinged with dirty yellowish; rest of 

 head, neck, back, shoulders, and under parts (except 

 chin and under tail-coverts), plain smoke-gray or drab- 

 gray, the head somewhat paler than other portions ; 

 rump, darker gray than back, deepening into grayish- 

 black on upper tail-coverts ; under tail-coverts, pure 

 white; wings and two middle tail-feathers, black, glossed 

 with purplish-blue or violet, especially on wing-coverts 

 and secondaries, the latter very broadly tipped with 



white; four outermost pairs of tail-feathers white, the 

 fifth pair with outer web mostly white and inner web 

 mostly black ; iris, brown. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest: Usually in pines on hor- 

 izontal branches from 8 to 40 feet up ; a large bulky 

 affair; the base of coarse sticks, twigs of white sage, 

 on which is built the true nest of dried grasses, plant- 

 fiber, moss and fine strips of juniper bark, all deftly in- 

 terwoven into a snug home. Eggs : 3 to 5, finely and 

 minutely specked with brown and pale purple, uniformly 

 marked or wreathed at large end. 



Distribution. — Coniferous forests of western North 

 America, from high mountains of New Mexico. Ari- 

 zona; and northern Lower California to northwestern 

 .Maska ; casual in southeastern South Dakota. Ne- 

 braska, western Kansas, western Missouri, and Arkan- 

 sas. 



The Clarke Crow or Nutcracker was first dis- 

 covered by Captain William Clarke near the site 

 of Salmon City in Idaho, August 22, 1805. While 

 this bird is a Crow in actions, yet in dress he is 

 very different. One might think Mother Nature 

 had made him by using an ordinary Crow. She 

 whitened his whole body, but did not finish with 

 his wings and tail ; these she left black except 



with a white patch on the lower part of the 

 wings and the outer feathers of the tail. She 

 made a striking character, typical of the high 

 western mountainous country where the Alpine 

 hemlocks and the jack pines live. 



Whenever at Cloud Cap Inn, the log-house 

 hotel which is fastened down with cables on the 

 north slope of Mt. Hood, I like to spend all the 



^i-^^. 



Drawing by R. I. Brasher 



CLARKE'S NUTCRACKER ( J nat. size) 



A conspicuous, noisy, good-natured mountaineer, who keeps you well informed as to his 

 whereabouts and his opinions 



