72 Mtjnro, Birds of the Okanagan Valley. [jati. 



saddle fashion on a rather large limb, generally at a crotch, but I have 

 found two that were built in upright forks like a Yellow Warbler's nest. 

 These two nests were in half-dead peach trees in an orchard. 



On June 20, 1911, a nest with four eggs was found in black cottonwood 

 (Populns trichocarpa) on the lake shore. The eggs were eaten and the nest 

 partly destroyed, probably by a White-footed Mouse. They built another 

 nest in the same tree, and, on July 4, I collected the nest and three eggs. 

 While climbing the tree, the female flew past my face several times, snapping 

 her mandibles. This pair then built a third time in a poplar a few yards 

 from the cottonwood and the nest was completed in three days. I was 

 unable to follow the vicissitudes of this family any further. 



Pica pica hudsonia. Magpie. — Abundant resident in the river 

 bottoms and on the yellow-pine benches but are less common in the forests. 

 Little good can be said^ of these birds; they are probably the worst egg 

 thieves of all the Corvidae. If one leaves any game cached in the woods 

 they are sure to find it and eat the greater portion. In trapping small 

 mammals in a Magpie country one must go over the trap line frequently 

 or manj' specimens will be eaten. I received a reliable report of a small 

 band of Magpies that had picked large holes in the backs of several young 

 shoats. Their habit of raising a hue and cry, after any owl that makes its 

 appearance, is sometimes of great use to the collector. As they raise large 

 broods, laying six to eight eggs, and have few natural enemies they are 

 increasing rapidly. 



Except in the nesting season, they are exceedingly wary and well able to 

 look after themselves. Frequently they are caught in traps set for mink 

 and very often in coyote traps, set near a carcass. They are easily taken 

 by poisoned baits. 



In the spring, they have the Cowbird habit of walking over range horses' 

 backs and picking off the fat wood-ticks. 



They usually nest in colonies, in patches of nearly impenetrable Black 

 Haw (Cratcegus douglasi) or in brushy coulees, on open hillsides. The 

 following nest can be taken as typical. 



May 14, 1915. Seven fresh eggs; nest of mud and sticks fined with 

 grass and fine roots, eight feet from the ground and near the top of a Black 

 Haw. The outer covering of the nest, about three and one half feet in 

 height, made of thorny Black Haw branches, with an entrance at each 

 side, six inches above the nest proper. 



The birds return to the same locality every year and repair the old nests, 

 if they are not too dilapidated. April 22 is the earliest record for a full 

 set of eggs. 



When the young are nearly full grown, they gather in large flocks on the 

 bare hillsides and feed on grasshoppers and crickets. This of course is 

 in their favor but cannot balance their evil deeds. 



Nucifraga Columbiana. Clark's Nutcracker. — Resident; their 

 abundance depending on the seed crop of the Yellow Pine (Pinus pon- 

 derosa). Like all corvine buds, they are exceedingly curious and a passing 

 deer or coyote will attract their attention so that the position of game can 



