212 ZOOLOGY. 



Sound it is very plentiful throughout the year. In winter it subsists principally upon the refuse 

 food and offal thrown out by the natives from their lodges, and is also an attentive hanger on 

 at the residences of the white settlers. It is cunning, but very tame and impudent, allowing a 

 very near approach, and when closely pursued retiring but a short distance. Like some species 

 of gull, this bird is in the habit of carrying clams high in the air and tlien dropping them, in 

 order to break the shell. In watching one thus employed I was very much amused at the 

 unsuccessful endeavors he made to break the shell of a clam by letting it drop on soft ground. 

 He continued for a long time carrying and recarrying the same clam high aloft and fruitlessly 

 dropping it on the prairie sod. He nevertheless persisted perseveringly in his efforts until I 

 became tired of watching him. What the result was I am unable to state. 



A nest of this species which I found at Fort Dalles contained three eggs. It was situated in 

 a dense willow thicket near a lagoon on the Columbia. The eggs were about one and a half 

 inch long and very wide in their short diameter, and of a dirty green ground with brown spots. 

 • Prof. Baird, in speaking of the similarity of this species with the Corvus americanus, says 

 that "it is almost a question whether it be more than a dwarfed race of the other species." 

 To this I would reply that its habits are too dissimilar to admit the doubt. It is not wary and 

 suspicious like the common crow, but in its impudent familiarity with man closely resembles 

 the English jackdaw, and scarcely learns to be shy even after being annoyed with the 

 gun. — S. 



PICICORVUS COLUMBIANUS, Bon. 



Clarke's Crow. 



Corvus columbianus, Wilson, Am. Orn. Ill, 1811, 29; pi. xx— Bon. Obs. Wilson, 1824, No. 38.— Is. Syn. 1828,57.— 



NUTTALL, I, 1832, 218. 

 J^ucifraga columbiana, Ave Orn. Biog IV, 1838, 459; pi. 3C2.— Ib. Syn. 1839, 156.— lu. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 127, 



pi. 235.— Bon. List, 1838 — Nut i all, Man. 1, 2d ed. 251. 

 Piciconus colambiana, Bo.vap. Consp. 1850, 384. — Newberry, P. R. R. Rep. VI, iv, 1837, 83. — Baird, Gen. Rep. 



Birds, p. 573. 

 " Corvus megonyx, Wagler." 



Sp. Cii. — Tail rounded or moderately graduated, the closed wings reaching nearly to its tip. Fourth quill longest; second 

 considerably shorter than the sixth. General color bluish ash, changing on the nasal feathers, the forehead, sides of head, 

 (especially around the eye,) and chin, to white. The wings, including their inner surface, greenish black, the secondaries and 

 tertials, except the innermost, broadly tipped with white; tail white, the inner web of the fifth feather and the whole of the 

 sixth, with the upper tail coverts, greenish black. The axillars plumbeous black, bill and feet black, iris brown. 



Length of male, (fresh,) 12.50 inches; extent, 22 50; wing, 7; tail, 4.30; tarsus, 1 20. 



flab. — From Rocky mountains to Pacific. East to Fort Kearney. Mauvaises Terras of the Upper Missouri. 



After crossing the Cascade mountains eastward in 1853, I found the American nutcracker 

 (or Clarke's crow) quite abundant along the banks of the Yakima river, whence it continued 

 common northward wherever the long-leaved pine grows, whose seeds were its principal food. 

 On returning to Vancouver, it appeared during the severe cold winter of January, 1854, in 

 considerable numbers. I have never seen it at any other season west of the Cascade 

 mountains, and think its migration westward is only during the coldest weather. It probably 

 lives during summer very high in the mountains, as the pine and spruce grow nearly to their 

 snow line. It doubtless extends eastward throughout the Territory, as I have shot it at Fort 

 Laramie, Nebraska Territory, and a straggling pair even as far east as Fort Kearney. I have 



