OUNITHOLOGIST 



—AND— . 



OOL()(;iST. 



•■Jl.on per 

 Aniinm. 



Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publieber. 

 EKtablished, Mareli, is'i'.'j. 



Single Copy, 

 10 Cents. 



VOL. VII. 



NORWICH, CONN., APRIL, 1882. 



NO. 14. 



Clarke's Crow. 



CAPT. CHAS. E. BENniRE. U. S. A. 



Althoug-b the Clarke's Crow or Nut- 

 cracker {Picicorvus coluinbianits Boriap) 

 is a widely distril)iitc(l bird, heino- found 

 in considerable numbers in all suitable lo- 

 calities from the eastern slopes of the 

 Rockv Mountains to the Sierra Nevadas on 

 the west and from Sitka Alaska on the 

 north to the mountainous portions of Ari- 

 zona and New Mexico on the south, there 

 are few birds found in our Avifauna about 

 whose nesting habits we had less positiye 

 information, and whose eggs remained so 

 long unre])resented in our largest collec- 

 tions, by even a single specimen, till I was 

 fortunate enough to obtain the nest and 

 eggs of this species, in the Spring of 187G, 

 near Fort Harney, Oregon. 



It is now something like twelve years 

 since I first became earnestly interested in 

 Oology, and during these years I have 

 taken many rare sets of eggs, not a few of 

 these new to science, and I believe I can 

 honestly say that I have no specimens in 

 my collection which have cost me so much 

 labor and searching to obtain them, than 

 the eggs of this species have done. How- 

 ever, at the same time, I felt more genuine 

 gratification after finding them, and I was 

 well repaid for all the labor expended 

 from the knowledge that these eggs liad 

 been especial desiderata and searched for 

 many years unsnccessfnlly, till I had finally 

 succeeded where many noted ornithologists 

 had faUed before me. 



I met with these birds for the first time 

 during the early part of the Winter of '74- 



'75, near Fort Harney, Oregon, to which 

 post I had been assigned to duty a short 

 time previously, and well do I recollect 

 even now the tramp I had after tlie first 

 specimen I secured. The bird was a com- 

 plete stranger to me — I took it to be some 

 new and undescribed woodpecker — and I 

 was determined to have it. The snow, by 

 the way, was something like two feet deep, 

 which made walking anytliing but pleas- 

 ant. The bird seemed to know exactly 

 how far my gmi would reach, and kept just 

 far enough out of the way, leatling me 

 from tree to tree for fuUy two hours, till 

 by a lucky chance I secured it with a snap 

 shot while it was in the act of doiibling on 

 me. When I picked it up I still thought 

 that I had seciu-ed quite a prize and fondly 

 hoped it would prove a new species, but 

 after getting home, although wet and tired, 

 it took me but a short time to locate the 

 specimen and to find out that it was already 

 well known, but that its eggs remained 

 almost unknown, and I determined to dis- 

 cover these at least, should the birds be 

 fomid in the vicinity during the l)reeding 

 season. 



For some reason not easily explained I 

 had come to an almost positive conclusion 

 that Clarke's Crow nested in hollow trees, 

 and as they act in many respects like cer- 

 tain of our woodpeckers and frei|uented 

 the juniper groves fully as nnich as the 

 pine timlier this seemed ]3lausible enough. 

 The finding of several young birds of this 

 species but a few days out of their nest on 

 May 5, 1875, sitting on the branches of a 

 large juniper, in the trunk of which I 

 found a cavitv filled with rubliish, and 



