330 LAND BIRDS 
Nest: Bulky ; of twigs; lined with shredded bark, grasses, and pine 
needles ; placed in coniferous trees, 8 to 40 feet from the ground. 
Eggs: 3 to 5; light green, irregularly marked with brown, gray, and 
light purple. Size 1.22 X 0.95. 
“Ags black as a crow” loses its significance when one 
looks at the soft gray plumage of the Clarke Crow, or» 
Nutcracker, of the California mountains. In coloring he 
is much more like our common shrikes than like the 
family with whicl: his structure classes him. And with 
the change in plumage we find a change of heart, for the 
Nutcracker has few of the reprehensible traits of his kin. 
True, if nuts and insects were scarce and eggs or young 
birds plentiful, his menu would doubtless include the 
latter; but his choice is always for vegetable or insect 
food. Grasshoppers and the big wingless black crickets 
he devours in untold numbers, and grows fat on the diet. 
Butterflies he catches on the wing in flycatcher fashion ; 
grubs he picks from the bark, clinging to the side of the 
tree trunks and hammering like a woodpecker; like a 
crossbill, he hangs to the under side of a pine cone and 
probes for seeds ; meat or fish he will steal, if he can, 
from the camper, after the manner of the Oregon jays. 
He shares with this bird the epithet of “ camp robber.” 
His migrations are always vertical and for the purpose of 
food supplies. Breeding commonly in the spruce belt 
in September when the pition nuts are ripening, he 
comes down the mountains in flocks to feast upon them. 
Farther north, the deep snows drive him toward the 
valleys until he finds some snow-bound ranchman’s or 
miner’s camp, where scraps of the refuse will provide his 
daily meals. In the silence and desolation of the winter 
