112 Henshaw on the Nest and Eggs of the Blue Crow . 
sedate and imperturbable Herodias, when she folded up her legs 
and closed her eyes, and went off into the dreamland of incubation, 
undisturbed in a very Babel ! Again, I have found a colony of 
Swallows in what would seem to be a very dangerous neighborhood, 
— all about the nest of a Falcon, no other than the valiant and 
merciless Falco polyagrus , on the very minarets and buttresses of 
whose awe-inspiring castle, on the scowling face of a precipice, a 
colony of Swallows was established in apparent security. The big- 
birds seemed to be very comfortable ogres, wdth whom the multi- 
tude of hop-o’-my-thumbs had evidently some sort of understanding, 
perhaps like that which the Purple Grackles may be supposed to have 
with the Fish-Hawks wdien they set up housekeeping in the cellar 
of King Pandion’s palace. If it had only been a Fish-Hawk in this 
case instead of Falco polyagrus , we could understand such amicable 
relations better, — for Cliff Swallows are cousins of Purple Martins, 
and, if half we hear be true, Progne was Pandion’s daughter. 
NEST AND EGGS OF THE BLUE CROW ( GYMNOKITTA 
CYANOCEPHALA). 
BY H. W. HENSHAW. 
The Blue Crow, or Maximilian’s Jay, is one of the most notable 
and characteristic of the birds inhabiting the Interior Region, to 
which it is very closely confined, and of the limits of which its pres- 
ence may be accepted as an almost certain indication. Notwith- 
standing the fact that upon the Pacific slope are found in greatest 
abundance the same trees from which the bird derives the main 
part of its subsistence, the yellow pine, pinon, and juniper, it 
shuns the west side of the Sierras, and occurs only within the 
limits of the great interior basin and upon the eastern slope of the 
Rocky Mountains. As its pow r ers of flight are most ample, it is 
within this area confined to no special limits of locality. By the 
Mexicans it is called the Pinonario or Pinon Bird, and most appropri- 
ately is it named ; for, wherever within the limits assigned this 
tree is found, there, at any season of the year, but especially in fall, 
