56 Mr. Elliott Coues on Picicorvus columbianus. 



down at 48°. Thus, at Fort Whipple, Arizona (near 35° 30', and 

 from 4000 to 5000 feet high), I never saw one in summer, though 

 it was very abundant at irregular intervals from October till 

 March ; and I have no doubt that it went up the neighbouring 

 San-Francisco mountains, to twice the elevation or more, to 

 breed there, along witli the Gymnokitta. In all these points, 

 it will be seen that Clarke's Crow is not peculiar, but recalls 

 many parallel cases. 



From what has gone before, what I shall have to say of the 

 bird's food will be anticipated. Pine-seeds are not its exclusive 

 diet, to be sure, all the family being too nearly omnivorous for 

 this ; but these fruits form by far the greater part of its nou- 

 rishment. It also eats cedar-berries [Juniperus), and the acorns 

 of the scrubby oaks that grow in the glades of the lower 

 mountain-valleys that the bird visits. Of the number of birds 

 that feed from pine-cones, only one, the Crossbill, has a special 

 apparatus for shelling out the seeds ; and it is curious to ob- 

 serve how differently the others go about it. The Long-crested 

 Jay [Cyanura macrolo'plui), for example, will hold a cone under 

 its feet, like a Hawk a small bird, and dig out the seeds ; or it 

 will carry a cone in its bill to stick in a crotch, and then ham- 

 mer at it like a Nuthatch. I have never seen Clarke's Crow 

 go to work in either of these ways : it pries directly into the 

 scales of the strobile with its long conico-cuneate bill, and 

 gouges out the seeds, meanwhile often hanging to the bunch 

 of cones head downwards, like a Thistle-bird {Chrysomitris 

 tristis) swinging under the globular ament of a Platanus. 

 How much animal diet the bird approves of, I can hardly say ; 

 but it certainly does eat insects. Dr. Cooper has noticed the 

 birds " pecking at dead bark to obtain insects, and flying short 

 distances after them, like Woodpeckers " [op. cit. 290) ; and 

 I have often witnessed the same thing. It does not seem to 

 come down to the ground so often as other birds of its tribe ; 

 and what it gets there is uncertain ; perhaps, however, it then 

 gathers other kinds of seeds and insects for variety, and no 

 doubt picks up gravel to help to grind the tough pine-seeds it 

 harvests above. We have another evidence of its very slightly 

 terrestrial habits in the length, curvature, and sharpness of its 



