330 LAND BIRDS 



Nest : Bulky ; of twigs ; lined with shredded bark, grasses, and pine 

 needles ; placed in coniferous trees, 8 to 40 feet from the ground. 



Eggs : 3 to 5 ; light green, irregularly marked with brown, gray, and 

 light purple. Size 1.22 X 0.95. 



" As black as a crow " loses its significance when one 

 looks at the soft gray plumage of the Clarke Crow, or 

 Nutcracker, of the California mountains. In coloring he 

 is much more like our common shrikes than like the 

 family with which his structure classes him. And with 

 the change in plumage we find a change of heart, for the 

 Nutcracker has few of the reprehensible traits of his kin. 

 True, if nuts and insects were scarce and eggs or young 

 birds plentiful, his menu would doubtless include the 

 latter ; but his choice is always for vegetable or insect 

 food. Grasshoppers and the big wingless black crickets 

 he devours in untold numbers, and grows fat on the diet. 

 Butterflies he catches on the wing in flycatcher fashion ; 

 grubs he picks from the bark, clinging to the side of the 

 tree trunks and hammering like a woodpecker ; like a 

 crossbill, he hangs to the under side of a pine cone and 

 probes for seeds ; meat or fish he will steal, if he can, 

 from the camper, after the manner of the Oregon jays. 

 He shares with this bird the epithet of " camp robber." 

 His migrations are always vertical and for the purpose of 

 food supplies. Breeding commonly in the spruce belt 

 in September when the pinon nuts are ripening, he 

 comes down the mountains in flocks to feast upon them. 

 Farther north, the deep snows drive him toward the 

 valleys until he finds some snow-bound ranchman's or 

 miner's camp, where scraps of the refuse will provide his 

 daily meals. In the silence and desolation of the winter 



