44 £be IKIlarblcr 



that the Pinyon Jay never rears any young receives a quasi-corroboration 

 from the fact ; that one may not find one nest for every twenty-five or more 

 of birds familiarly and constantly observed within the limits of the breeding 

 area. In very truth, it seems that many Pinyon Jays do not breed at all, 

 during given seasons. Hypothetically, this barrenness is a question of age. 

 (The same condition appears to maintain with the Canada Jay ; at least in 

 Wyoming.) These non-breeding birds frequent, during the breeding sea- 

 son, the grounds wherein are found the few scattered nests of fertile birds. 

 They do not separate ; but keep in more-or-less compact flocks ; whether 

 feeding or resting or roosting. 



The Pinyon Jay is erratic in its choice of breeding locations. Yet it is 

 perhaps hardly more so than are many other birds of its class. In the main, 

 the locations are found invariably along the bull-pine-bristling sides of can- 

 yons. These locations are usually remote from the immediate winter 

 haunts ; and from the abodes of man. The chosen trees are usually rather 

 small ; and situated, almost invariably, rather isolated from their fellows. 

 An occasional hemlock sapling will contain a nest within the density of its 

 leafy mazes ; but such sites are unusual. The sites occupied vary much. 

 The norm would seem to be the horizontal limb of a bull-pine ; and usually 

 the lowest limb. This is even the case where the chosen limb is within 

 reach of the ground ; but this height is unusual. The nest-heights range, 

 in general, from six feet to twenty. Few nests, (in Wyoming), lie outside 

 these extremes. A few nests are set close to the trunks of the chosen pines : 

 and such nests are usually quite elevated ; (apparently for the securing of 

 suitable surrounding twigs for the sustaining of the nest.) 



Few bird fabrics are more uniform in material and structure than the 

 nests of the Pinyon Jay. The chief observed differences are in size and in 

 the inner diameter. The chief underpinning of the nests will consist of 

 willow and aspen twigs. With these are commingled, externally, the stems 

 of a plant, (artemisia ?) y that retains its bleached leaves on the stem, in dy- 

 ing. Various other plant stems are added to the fabric ; which is by no 

 means always bulky, for a Jay nest. The nest-linings are almost invariably 

 composed of a very fine, bleached bark ; suggesting a dark-colored hemp in 

 texture and in color. The entire nest is invariably quite deeper, relatively, 

 than nests of the Blue Jay ; and often more broadly cupped. An occasional 

 nest is relatively monstrous ; reaching a size quite double that of small nests 

 of this Jay. 



One is inclined to wonder whether the alleged community nestings of 

 this Jay are not mythical. The Pinyon Jay is very common in Weston 

 County, Wyoming; (though curiously rare in Crook County, just to the 

 north). Yet the group of four nests referred to above is the only instance 

 of any observed condition which could in any sense be tortured into com- 

 parative harmony with the prevailing idea as to the nestings of this Jay ; 



