BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 281 



NUCIFRAGA COLUMBIANA (Wilson). 

 CLARKE'S NTTTCRACKER. 



Adults {sexes alike) in winter. — Nasal tufts, anterior portion of fore- 

 head, lores, eyelids, anterior portion of malar region, and chin, white, 

 usually more or less soiled or tinged with dirty yellowish; rest of 

 head, neck, back, scapulars, and under parts (except chin and under 

 tail-coverts), plain smoke gray or drab-graj', the head somewhat paler 

 than other portions; rump darker gray than back, deepening into 

 grayish black on upper tail-coverts; under tail-coverts pure white; 

 wings and two middle rectrices black, glossed with purplish blue or 

 violet, especially on wing-coverts and secondaries, the latter (but not 

 the tertials) very broadly tipped with white; four outermost pairs of 

 rectrices white, the fifth pair with outer web mostly white and inner 

 web mostly black; bill, legs, and feet black; iris brown. 



Adults in summer. — Similar to winter adults but the gray paler and 

 browner (light brownish drab-gray). 



Young. — Similar to summer adults, but gray rather paler (that of 

 the head fading gradually into the white of anterior portions), lesser 

 wing-coverts dusky grayish brown, middle, greater, and primary 

 coverts indistinctlj'^ tipped with the same, and black of wings and tail 

 duller. 



Adult ma^e.— Length (skins), 292.5-315 (302.5); wing, 190.5-198.5 

 (194.5); tail, 114-118.6 (116.6); exposed culmen, 37.5^5.5 (42); depth 

 of bill at tip of nasal tufts, 11.5-12.5 (12); tarsus, 35-38 (36.5); middle 

 toe, 23-26 (23.5)." 



Adtdt female.— Length (skins), 279.5-297.5 (289); wing, 187.5-192.5 

 (189.6); tail, 111-118.5 (114); exposed culmen, 37-39.6 (38); depth of 

 bill at end of nasal tufts, 10.5-11.5 (11); tarsus, 32.5-36 (36); middle 

 toe, 20.5-25 (22.6.)« 



Conifero,us forests of western North America, from high mountains 

 of New Mexico, Arizona (San Francisco and White Mountains), and 

 northern Lower California (San Pedro Martir Mountains) to north- 

 western Alaska (Kowak River, Bristol Bay, etc.). (Western forest 

 districts of Boreal Province and Boreal "islands" within arid division 

 of Transition and Upper Austral life-zones.) Casual in southeastern 

 South Dakota, Nebraska, western Kansas (Finney and Marshall 

 counties), western Missouri (Kansas City), and Arkansas (Crittenden 

 County). 



Corvus cofamftMBMS Wilson, Am. Orn., iii, 1811, 29, pi. 20, fig. 3 (Columbia E.). — 

 Bonaparte, Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., iii, 1824, 359; Ann. Lye. N. Y., iii, 

 1828, 57.— NuTTALL, Man. Orn. U. S. and Can., i, 1832, 218. 



Nucifraga columhiana Auddbon, Orn. Biog., iv, 1838, 459, pi. 362; Synopsis, 1839, 

 156; Birds Am., oct. ed., iv, 1842, 127, pi. 235. — Bonapahtb, Geog. and 



«Six specimens. 



