ooT., 1899.] BIRDS. 121 
they moved up to timberline to feed on the large wingless grasshoppers 
then abundant along the upper edge of the tongues of dwarf white- 
bark pines and on the lava-strewn pumice slopes at still higher eleva- 
tions. Some were seen along the edge of the snow at an altitude of 
11,000 feet, where dragon-flies, grasshoppers, and other insects were 
common, 
Clark crow is a little larger than a blue jay, and his colors are put 
oninblocks. The body is gray; the wings and tail are black and white, 
in conspicuous contrast. Still, singular as it may seem, this colora- 
tion is both directive and protective. 
When in motion the bird is most con. 
spicuous, the black and white patches 
flashing with great effect; but when 
quietly feeding on the ground among 
the gray lava rocks of the higher 
slopes it is not easily seen, the gray 
of the body resembling the gray 
rocks, the black markings the dark 
shadows. The coloration, however, 
is doubtless most protective at night 
when the bird is at roost in the trees 
and exposed to its worst enemies, Fig. 40.—Clark Crow (Vucifruya eolumbiana), 
presumably owls and martens. Con- cetera ASE eE eee 
trasts of gray or white with black are among the most effective of 
disappearing colors at night—the black resembling patches of night 
shadow, the gray the interspaces. 
The true home of the Clark crow is among the wihite-bark pines of 
the rocky wind-swept ridges not far from the region of perpetual snow. 
Here, from the thaws of early spring till the storms of approaching 
winter, not a day passes without his presence. He is a bold, powerful 
bird, a fit tenant for such a home, where his loud cry wakes the echoes 
of glacier cliffs a thousand times oftener than it reaches a human ear. 
69. Cyanocephalus cyanocephalus. Piiion Jay. 
Not an inhabitant of Shasta, but occurs in migration about its base, 
and may breed iu the junipers in Shasta Valley. 
September 2s, Vernon Bailey saw six in the chaparral and yellow 
pines at an altitude of 4,000 feet on the wagon road between Elk Creek 
and Ash Creek, and the next day found a few near Sheep Rock. At 
Fort Crook, a little southeast of Shasta, a number were collected some 
years ago by Captain Feilner. 
70. Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus. Yellow-headed Blackbird. 
Not observed by us, but in 1883 ©. H. Townsend often saw it “among 
the flocks of Brewer blackbirds that frequented the timethy meadows 
of Berryvale, at the western base of Mount Shasta, 3,500 feet altitude.” 
Berryvale is the old name for the meadows near Sisson Tavern. 
21753—No. 16——16 
