CORVID^ — THE CROWS. 269 



flew swiftly past with quivering wings, and with a flirt of the glittering tail 

 and a curious evohition dashed into a dense thicket close by. In the hope 

 of seeing him again, and perhaps of finding his nest, I hurried to the sjDot 

 where he had disappeared, and pushed into the underbrush. In a few 

 moments I stood in a little open space, surrounded on all sides and covered 

 above with a network of vines interlacing the twigs and foliage so closely 

 that the sun's rays hardly struggled through. A pretty shady bower ! and 

 there, sure enough, was the nest, not likely to be overlooked, for it was as 

 big as a bushel basket, — a globular mass, hung in the top of one of the 

 taller saplings, about twelve feet from the ground. The mother bird was at 

 home, and my bustling approach alarmed her ; she flew out of the nest with 

 loud cries of distress, which brought the male to her side in an instant. As 

 I scrambled up the slender trunk, which swayed with my weight, both birds 

 kept flying about my head with redoubled outcry, alighting for an instant, 

 then dashing past again so close that I thought they would peck at me. As 

 I had no means of preserving the nest, I would not take it down, and con- 

 tented myself with such observations as I could make whilst bestriding a 

 limb altogether too slender for comfort. It was nearly spherical in shape, 

 seemed to be about eighteen inches in diameter, arched over, with a small 

 hole on one side. The walls, composed entirely of interlaced twigs bristling 

 outwardly in every direction, were extremely thick, the space inside being 

 much less than one would expect, and seemingly hardly enough to accom- 

 modate the bird's long tail, which I suppose must be held upright. The nest 

 was lined with a little coarse dried grass, and contained six young ones 

 nearly ready to fly. Authors state that the American Magpie lays only two 

 eggs ; but I suppose that this particular pair lived too far from scientific 

 centres to find out what was expected of them. Other birds, noticed to-day, 

 were Steller's Jays among the jjines and cedars, a flock of Chrysomitris, 

 apparently pinus, feeding on willow-buds along the rivulet that threaded the 

 gorge, and some Eobins." 



The eggs of this Magpie are somewhat larger than any I have seen of 

 P. nuttalli, and are differently marked and colored. Six specimens from 

 the Sierra Nevada exhibit the following measurements : 1.40 X 0.98, 1.22 

 X 1.00, 1.41 X 0.95, 1.28 X 0.95, 1.26 X 0.92, 1.32 X 0.96. Their ground- 

 color is a grayish-white, or light gray with a yellowish tinge, si3otted with 

 blotches, dottings, and dashes of a purplish or violet brown. In some they 

 are sparsely distributed, showing plainly the ground, more confluent at the 

 larger end. In others they are finer, more generally and more thickly dis- 

 tributed. In others they are much larger and of deeper color, and cover the 

 whole of the larger end with one large cloud of confluent markings. None 

 of these closely resembles the eggs of P. mittalli. The usual number of eggs 

 in a nest, according to Mr. Eidgway, varies from six to nine, although it is 

 said that ten are sometimes found. 



