DUSKY, GRAY, AND SLATE-COLORED 331 
forest, he is hailed as a welcome bit of life and fed until 
he becomes very tame and very saucy. 
It is on the crests of the Sierra Nevada that these 
birds are found most abundantly. Here they sun them- 
selves on the highest peaks, frolicking noisily in the clear, 
bracing air. When hungry or thirsty, out they dart from 
their lofty perches and, with wings folded, hurl them- 
selves down the canon with the speed of a bullet. Just 
as you are sure they will be dashed to pieces, their wings 
open with an explosive noise and the headlong fall is 
checked ina moment. Sometimes the descent is finished 
as lightly as the fall of a bit of thistle down ; sometimes 
by another series of swift flights ; often by one rocket- 
like plunge. At the foot a mountain brook furnishes 
food and drink. As the shadows creep up the sides of 
the cafion, the Nutcrackers follow the receding sunlight 
to the summit again, mounting by very short flights from 
tree to tree, in the same way that a jay climbs to the top 
of a tree by hopping from one branch to another. 
My own records of the nesting habits of this bird as 
studied in the San Bernardino mountains differ some- 
what from those made by observers in more northern 
regions. The nests were all rather bulky, composed first 
of a platform of twigs, each one nearly a foot in length, 
so interlaced that to pull one was to disarrange the mass. 
Upon this, and held in place by the twigs at the sides, 
was the nest proper, 
a soft, warm hemisphere of fine 
strips of bark, matted with grasses and pine needles 
until it was almost like felt. This is stiffened, bound, 
and made firmer by coarse strips of bark around the out- 
