Whiskey John in Colorado 



BY EDWARD R. WARREN. CRESTED BUTTE. COLORADO 



With photographs from nature by the author 



IF you ask a western man whether he is acquainted with Whiskey 

 John or Whiskey Jack, he will most likely say, "No; never 

 heard of him." Ask him about Camp Robbers, and he will say 

 "Yes" if he lives in the mountains of Colorado, for the bird 

 does not, as a rule, come much below 10,000 feet. He lives 

 mostly in the heavy spruce timber and at once makes himself 

 at home about your camp or cabin, as Mrs. Hardy so vividly 

 described in Bird-Lore for August, 1902. 



Breeding while the snow is deep in the timber, no one ever sees their 

 nests. Ornithologists are scarce in the mountains, and I imagine it would 

 be quite a task to find the nest in the thickly branched trees. I have seen 

 young just out of the nest in the middle of May, when there was still three 



A CAMP PET 



or four feet of snow in the timber, at an altitude of nearly 11,000 feet. 

 They are then in'the dark plumage Mrs. Hardy mentions. They are some- 

 what lighter in the fall, and I often think become grayer as they grow older ; 

 at least the verv light -colored ones have a most venerable and patriarchal 



