'8S3-J Goss oti Maximiliai/^s Jay n>id Clarke s Crow. A^ 



^valley, half a mile away. I spent more than two weeks in this 

 fruitless search, returning every night to camp, tired and disap- 

 pointed. Any one who has tramped over mountains, in the light 

 air of 9000 feet elevation, will understand how exhausting such 

 labor is ; but I particularly wished to get the eggs of this bird, 

 was sure they were nesting in the neighborhood, and did not like 

 to give it up. One evening, after a particularly hard day's work, 

 as I sat by my camp-fire, looking up the valley, one of these 

 birds left the high timber and flew across to the other side. Its 

 direct and silent flight suggested that it might be going to its 

 nest, and that I had been looking in the wrong locality. Accord- 

 ingly, w^ith renewed hope, I started early next morning to the 

 hill where I had seen it go. After climbing over the rocks and 

 through the bushes for some time I sat down to rest, when I no- 

 ticed something on a tree about thirty feet away that looked 

 more like a squirrel's nest than anything else. On closer inspec- 

 tion, however, I saw that it was a bird's nest, and climbing up a 

 short distance, was delighted to find a Clarke's Crow sitting on 

 its nest. She sat very close, only leaving when touched by my 

 hand. The nest was built near the end of a horizontal limb, 

 about ten feet from the ground, in an open, conspicuous situa- 

 tion. It was bulky, coarsely constructed, and very deeply hol- 

 lowed, the bird when on it showing only part of her bill and 

 tail, pointing almost directly upward. She was soon joined by 

 her mate, when, after hopping about in a listless manner for a 

 few minutes, both disappeared. They were silent when near 

 their nest, but noisy enough elsewhere. On further search I 

 found several old nests and one new one, apparently abandoned. 

 All were similar in construction and situation to the one de- 

 scribed, and evidently belonged to the same species. The nest 

 with young was found May 31. Froni finding these nests, and 

 from other observations made, I am satisfied that Clarke's Crow 

 breeds in open, warm situations, prefering steep hillsides ; had I 

 known this earlier I believe that I should have found more of their 

 nests. 



