i88s] Batchelder, Winter Notes from New Mexico. 12^ 



such gregarious habits would hardly be contented to lead a 

 solitary life, were it possible for it to find others of its kind 

 anywhere in the neighborhood. 



Following up the canon farther I was often tempted to turn 

 aside and climb the steep pine-covered hills that border it. Here 

 my first greetings were frequently the harsh screams of a small 

 party of Long-crested Jays ( Cyanocitta stelleri macrolopha) 

 that were lurking warily among the pines. If I had come very 

 quietly I sometimes found them feeding on the ground, but, ever 

 on the alert, at the slightest alarm they would take to the shelter 

 of the thick upper branches of the pines, where at their leisure 

 they could silently dodge from one tree to another and disappear 

 over the hills, easily distancing pursuit, for, in the thin atmos- 

 phere of that altitude, chasing birds up hills which offer a footing 

 ot loose stones, is no easy matter. If, however, they have not 

 been frightened, they will stay about in the pines, giving one 

 glimpses of their brilliant plumage as they try to satisfy their 

 curiosity about the invader of their domain, while they fill him 

 with amazement at the noisiness and variety of their harsh and 

 penetrating notes. They are more often to be found on the top 

 of the ridges than at the bottom of the ravines, and seem to 

 prefer places where the scattered pines grow most thickly, and 

 also trees that are not very high and whose branches are dense. 

 Occasionally they take to the pinons at the head of a ravine, and 

 I have even found them in a clump of scrub oaks high up on the 

 hills. 



Like others of their family, when the flock is moving from 

 place to place they never fly all at once, but go quietly one at a 

 time at short intervals, as if they did not like to attract too much 

 attention to their movements. In crossing a ravine, or in any 

 prolonged flight, they are apt to set their wings, and sail like 

 a Canada Jay. 



Their commonest cry is a -uchee-chh. long drawn out, rather 

 wheezy, and with a penetrating character suggestive of the Cat- 

 bird's cry. Another note, not heard as often, is one repeated 

 several times, that sounds like a weak, harsh imitation of the 

 ivake-tip of Colaptes auratus. 



They have one noticeable habit, especially when wounded, to 

 alighting on a lower branch of a pine close to the trunk, and 

 then hopping up from branch to branch, with short pauses, until 



