112 HENSHAW on the Nest and Eggs of the Blue Crow. 



sedate and imperturbable Herodias, when she folded up her legs 

 and closed her eyes, and went off into the dreamland of incubation, 

 undisturbed in a very Babel ! Again, I have found a colony of 

 Swallows in what would seem to be a very dangerous neighborhood, 

 — all about the nest of a Falcon, no other than the valiant and 

 merciless Falco polyagms, on the very minarets and buttresses of 

 whose awe-inspiring castle, on the scowling face of a precipice, a 

 colony of Swallows was established in apparent security. The big 

 birds seemed to be very comfortable ogres, with whom the multi- 

 tude of hop-o'-my-thumbs had evidently some sort of understanding, 

 perhaps like that which the Purple Crackles may be supposed to have 

 with the Fish-Hawks when they set up housekeeping in the cellar 

 of King Pandion's palace. If it had only been a Fish-Hawk in this 

 case instead of Falco polyagrus, we could understand such amicable 

 relations better, — for Cliff Swallows are cousins of Purple Martins, 

 and, if half we hear be true, Progne was Pandion's daughter. 



NEST AND EGGS OF THE BLUE CROW (GYMNOKITTA 

 CYANOCEPHALA). 



BY H. W. HENSHAW. 



The Blue Crow, or Maximilian's Jay, is one of the most notable 

 and characteristic of the birds inhabiting the Interior Region, to 

 which it is very closely confined, and of the limits of which its pres- 

 ence may be accepted as an almost certain indication. Notwith- 

 standing the fact that upon the Pacific slope are found in greatest 

 abundance the same trees from which the bird derives the main 

 part of its subsistence, the yellow pine, pinon, and juniper, it 

 shuns the west side of the Sierras, and occurs only within the 

 limits of the great interior basin and upon the eastern slope of the 

 Rocky Mountains. As its powers of flight are most ample, it is 

 within this area confined to DO special limits of locality. By the 

 Mexicans it is called the Pinonario or Pinon Bird, and most appropri- 

 ately is it named; for, wherever within the limits assigned this 

 tree Is found, there, at any season of the year, but especially in fall, 



