The Clark Nutcracker 



tree, without noticeable attempt at concealment. The birds take turns 

 incubating and — again because of the cold season — are very close sitters. 

 Three eggs are usually laid, of about the size and shape of Magpies' eggs 

 but much more lightly colored. Incubation, Bendire thinks, lasts sixteen 

 or seventeen days, and the young are fed chiefly on hulled pine seeds, 

 at the first, presumably regurgitated. 



If the Corvine affinities of this bird were nowhere else betrayed, they 

 might be known from the hunger cries of the young. The importunate 

 anh, anh, anh of the expectant bantling, and the subsequent gullu, gullu, 

 gidlu of median deglutition (and boundless satisfaction) will always 

 serve to bind the Crow, Magpie, and Nutcracker together in one compact 

 group. When the youngsters are "ready for college," the reserve of 

 early spring is set aside and the hillsides are made to resound with much 

 practice of that uncanny yell before mentioned. Family groups are 

 gradually obliterated and, along in June, the birds of the foothills begin 

 to deploy, or else to retire irregularly to the higher ranges, there to rest 

 up after the exhausting labors of the season, or else to revel in midsummer 

 gaiety with sundry scores of their fellows. 



Taken in Inyo County 



Photo bv the A llthor 



MOUNT LANGLEY FROM THE COTTONWOOD LAKES 



A TYPICAL HAUNT OF THE CLARK NUTCRACKER 



27 



