CLARKE'S NDTOKACKER. 419 



Navy, in the valley of the Kowak or Putnam River, in northern Alaska, and 

 within the Arctic Circle. Mr. F. Stephens states: "In southern California it is 

 never seen far from the piiion belt which extends in a series of small forests along 

 the desert face of the higher mountains, at altitudes of from 3,000 to 6,000 feet. 

 It is gregarious in its habits and wanders about a great deal, but can scarcely be 

 called a migrant here. It breeds in the higher pine'forests in the San Bernardino 

 Mountains, not far from the desert side." 



Mr. William G. Smith sent me the following notes about this species from 

 Colorado: "Common at high altitudes during the fall and winter. I have never 

 taken a nest, but have seen young birds in May. They are very tame where 

 not much molested; one entered my tent while camped in Estes Park. By 

 many persons this bird is called 'Camp Robber,' owing to its daring and thieving 

 propensities around camp fires. When the young arrive here, their throats and 

 breasts are frequently much stained with red from the juice of some berry they 

 have been feeding on elsewhere ; while here they fed mostly on the seeds of the 

 pine, occasionally alighting on the ground after grasshoppers and other insects.'' 



Dr. C. Hart Merriam met with it on the San Francisco Mountain, in Arizona, 

 and says: "Breeds commonly in the spruce belt, occasionally descending to the 

 pines in summer. In September, when the pinon nuts were ripening, it came 

 down the mountain in flocks, and was often seen in the pinon belt with the Pinon 

 and Woodhouse's Jays. At the same time it was common at the uppermost 

 limit of the dwarf spruce of the subalpine zone."^ 



He also met with it in the spruce belt on all tiie mountains visited by his 

 party in 1890 in south central Idaho; several specimens were caught in marten 

 traps baited with meat." 



This interesting species is quite common in suitable localities throughout 

 its range, and excepting perhaps in the more northern parts it is an irregular 

 resident wherever found. There is no question that they are great wanderers 

 at times, but this propensity is more likely the result of necessity than choice, 

 "and depends mainly on the food supply. In their general habits they resemble 

 certain Woodpeckers as much as they do the Corvince, and have many traits in 

 common with these birds. I well remember how elated I was over my first 

 specimen, which I obtained after a long chase through soft, slushy snoM^, think- 

 ing I had secured a new Woodpecker, its undulating flight resembling that of 

 on-e of these birds very closely. 



Excepting the breeding season, Clarke's Nutcrackers are sociable, inquisitive, 

 and exceedingly noisy birds, and are readily detected on this account when 

 moving about in flocks of a hundred or more in search of good feeding grounds; 

 they are quite omnivorous, and nothing edible is rejected by them. In the 

 winter their food consists principally of the seeds of different species of conifer- 

 ous trees, while at other times it is quite varied, including berries of various 

 kinds, beetles, and other insects and their larvge, including butterflies (which I 

 have seen them catch on the wing like a true Flycatcher) and grasshoppers. 



'Nortli American Fauna, No. 3, XJ. S. Department of Agriculture, 1890, p. 94. 

 ^North American Fauna, No. 5, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1891, p. 100. 



