Whiskey John in Colorado 



BY EDWARD R. WARREN. CRESTED BUTTE. COLORAD<J 



Willi phi)tci;;raphs froTii iiuliirr by the :nilhor 



F you ask a western man whether he is acquainted with Whiskey 

 John or Whiskey Jack, he will most likely say. "No; never 

 heard of him." Ask him ahout Camp Robbers, and he will say 

 "Yes" if he lives in the mountains of Colorado, for the bird 

 does not, as a rule, come much below lo.ooo feet. He lives 

 mostly in the heavy spruce timber and at once makes himself 

 at home about your camp or cabin, as Mrs. Hardy so vividly 

 described in Hird-Lore for August, igo2. 



Breeding while the snow is deep in the timber, no one ever sees their 

 nests. Ornithologists are scarce in the mountains, and I imagine it would 

 be quite a task to find the nest in the thickly branched trees. I have seen 

 young just out of the nest in the middle of Ma\ , when there was still three 



\ CAMP PET 



or four feet of snow in the timber, at an altitude of nearly 1 1 ,000 feet. 

 They are then in'the dark plumage Mrs. Hardy mentions. They are some- 

 what lighter in the fall, and I often think become grayer as they grow older ; 

 at least the verv light -colored ones have a most xenerable and patriarchal 



(186) 



