e THE CLARK NUTCRACKER. 
crossed mandibles to lever open the scales, but instead, feet and claws, 
that serve the purpose of hands, and a powerful bill like a small crowbar. 
To use the crowbar to advantage the cone needs steadying, or it would 
snap at the stem and fall; to accomplish this one foot clasps it, and the 
powerful claws hold it firmly, whilst the other foot encircling the branch, 
supports the bird, either back downward, head downward, on its side, or 
upright like a woodpecker, the long clasping claws being equal to any 
emergency; the cone thus fixed and a firm hold maintained on the branch, 
the seeds are gouged out from under the scales.” 
These Nutcrackers are among the earliest and most hardy nesters. 
They are practically independent of climate, but are found during the 
nesting months—March, or even late in February, and early April—only 
where there is a local abundance of pine (or fir) seeds. ‘They are artfully 
silent at this season, and the impression prevails that they have “gone to 
the mountains”; or, if in the mountains already, the presence of a dozen 
feet of snow serves to.allay the odlogist’s suspicions. 
The nest is a very substantial affair of twigs and bark-strips, heavily 
lined, as befits a cold season, and placed at any height in a pine or fir tree, 
without noticeable attempt at concealment. The birds take turns incubating 
and—again because of the cold season—are very close sitters. Three eggs 
are usually laid, of about the size and shape of Magpies’ eggs, but much 
more lightly colored. Incubation, Bendire thinks, lasts sixteen or seventeen 
days, and the young are fed solely on hulled pine seeds, at the first, pre- 
sumably, regurgitated. 
If the Corvine affinities of this bird were nowhere else betrayed, they 
might be known from the hunger cries of the young. The importunate avh, 
anh, anh of the expectant bantling, and the subsequent gull, gullit, 
gulli of median deglutition (and boundless satisfaction) will always serve 
to bind the Crow, Magpie, and Nutcracker together in one compact group. 
When the youngsters are “ready for college,” the reserve of early spring 
is set aside and the hillsides are made to resound with much practice of 
that uncanny yell before mentioned. Family groups are gradually obliterated 
and, along in June, the birds of the foothills begin to retire irregularly 
to the higher ranges, either to rest up after the exhausting labors of 
the season, or to revel in midsummer gaiety with scores and hundreds of 
their fellows. 
