THE PINON JAY 325 
tends from Mount St. Elias to San Francisco Bay. It is 
also the type of three subspecies, or varieties, found farther 
east and south. It is the Pacific coast counterpart of our 
blue-jay—high-crested, barred with black on wings and tail, 
and with blue as its prevailing color. 
Tue PiNon Jay! (pronounced pin’yone) is a bird well 
worth knowing. On the Sierra Nevada mountains and ad- 
jacent plateaus, where the pifion pine, juniper and cedar 
bravely struggle against the scarcity of water, and only half- 
clothe the rugged nakedness of Nature, this Jay is a welcome 
habitant. I think it safe to say that you will find it wherever 
you find the pifion pine, whose big, husky cones furnish a 
generous quantity of seeds, called “nuts,” which are good 
for man, and grand food for all the wild creatures that can 
crack their delicate shell. 
I have never seen the Pifion Jay so numerous that it 
could be called a “common” bird throughout an extensive 
region. At the same time, it is a bird of social habit, and 
given to flocking, quite like our eastern crow. It is really a 
connecting link between the crows and jays. It has a short, 
square tail, no crest or “top-knot”; its predominating color 
is grayish blue, and its cry is a crow-like “caw.”’ 
CLARKE’s Nut-Crackir? is a bird of the western moun- 
tain tops and canyons, and a companion of the mountain 
sheep. Wild creatures that love to dwell on high mountains, 
amid grand scenery, appeal to my sympathies more strongly 
than some others. To me, this bird recalls pictures of moun- 
1 Cy-an-o-ceph'a-lus cy-an-o-ceph'a-lus. Length, 11 inches. 
2 Nu-ci-fre’ga co-lum-bi-an’a. Length, 12 inches. 
