64 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVIII 
ter out a whole conversation in low tones. When on the way, going somewhere, 
the flight is strong, steady, and even; but when the journey is over, the wings 
are shut and the bird plunges forward in one long swoop, opening his wings 
and sweeping up to his perch. While descending from a height the nut- 
crackers pitch down either in one long swoop, opening their wings with an 
audible, explosive burst, and curving up to the landing places; or they will 
take a series of such plunges. When crossing between two nearby groves, they 
do it in long, undulating swoops. They are given to perching at the tip of 
some tall pine that is itself at the top of a mountain, or on some commanding 
position where the country can be surveyed for miles in every direction. When 
they drink they turn the head sideways and drink through the side of the 
long bill. They can be tamed and kept about the house, becoming as impu- 
dent and mischievous as crows. 
Nutcrackers have their own way of building their nests. Just think of 
birds that, build their nests in February and bring forth their naked young in 
March, long before the snow has left the ground ! These birds are so secre- 
tive about their nest that they make a series of stops fifty feet apart and sur- 
vey the country carefully from each stop. About February 1, at Fort Yellow- 
stone, elevation 6300 feet above sea level, the birds are mated and the building 
of the nest begins, each bird of the pair doing its share. The thick top of a 
cedar, or other evergreen, is selected, with a convenient crotch about twelve 
feet from the ground. First a rough platform of twigs is built. These twigs 
are broken from a cedar (western juniper) by a quick, wrenching jerk assisted 
by the cutting edges of the bill, and carried to the site. Here the material is 
piled in the crotch till the mass reaches a ball about nine inches in diameter 
and six inches high. The nest proper is deep and cup shaped, about six inches 
in diameter, and has walls an inch thick ; it is built of cedar or pine needles and 
the inner lining of grass stems and shredded juniper bark, each strand turned 
into place by the bird squatting down on it and twisting it in. A few horse 
hairs and bits of string are usually included in the lining. Four gray-green 
eggs, with irregular, gray-brown markings are laid between February 28 and 
March 3, and the brooding commences immediately. At such a time the brood- 
ing bird is subjected to all the vagaries of truly wintry weather. Often she sits 
through raging snowstorms protected only by the tuft of cedar needles over 
the nest, and many times has the writer seen the bird actually on the nest with 
the thermometer below zero. Under such conditions she draws herself down 
with only her tail feathers and perhaps her bill showing above the rim of the 
nest. She is very fearless, even submitting to capture rather than leave the 
nest ; when she leaves, she does so quietly, and returns immediately after the 
intruder is gone. After brooding twenty-two days the young are hatched, 
naked of course, and with their eyes closed. Four weeks later the young leave 
the nest and by May 5 are fully feathered and shifting for themselves. Not- 
withstanding this early start, there is no evidence to show that a second brood 
is raised. At higher altitudes the nesting is somewhat later, but at that it is 
safe to say that the latest of the young birds are able to care for themselves 
before the end of May. 
Summerville , South Carolina, January 27, 1916. 
