MAGPIES, JAYS, CROWS: MAGPIE 
481 
In an interesting account of the Arizona Jay in the Huachuca 
Mountains, Mr. Swarth says they are “very gregarious, and even 
during the breeding season may be seen traveling through the oaks 
in flocks of fifteen or twenty or more, ostensibly seeking for food, 
but also on the lookout for trouble, or any excitement which might 
turn up . . . the crowning joy of all is to find some wretched fox 
or wild cat quietly ensconced on some broad, sheltered oak limb. In 
such a case the one that finds the unhappy victim takes care to let 
every Jay within half a mile know from his outcry that there is some 
excitement on hand; and it is nothing unusual to see thirty or forty 
birds gathered about the object of their aversion. . . On one 
occasion I had an excellent opportunity of watching about twenty 
Arizona Jays protesting at the presence of a rather large rattlesnake 
which was leisurely traveling down a dry watercourse which passed 
our camp. The Jays seemed imbued with a wholesome fear of their 
wicked looking antagonist, and though they surrounded it, kept at 
a respectful distance . . . uttering low querulous cries, quite 
different from their usual outbursts. Some of the boldest lit a short 
distance from the snake, and strutted before it in a most curious 
fashion, head and body held bolt upright, and the tail pressed down 
on the ground until about a third of it was dragging” (1904, p. 30). 
AMERICAN MAGPIE: Pica pica huds6nia (Sabine) 
Plate 49 
Description. — Length (fresh): 17.4-21.7inches, wing 7. 3-8.4, tail 9.3-11.9, bill 
1.1-1.4, tarsus 1.7-1.9. Nostrils covered by bristles; tail extremely long, graduated 
for fully half its length; wings short and rounded, feet stout. Adults: Black varied 
with bronzy, blue or green metallic gloss except for white on lower underparts , scapular 
patch and inner webs of primaries, and grayish band across rump. Naked skin 
back of eye, black. Young in juvenal plumage: Black areas dull instead of glossy , 
white scapular patches tinged with buffy, black throat and breast more or less 
spotted with white; but wings and tail brilliantly metallic like those of adult. 
Range. —Mainly Boreal and Transition Zones from the eastern Aleutians, middle 
Yukon, central Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, and Lake Winnipeg south (between 
eastern slope of Cascades and Sierra Nevada on the west and central North Dakota 
and western Nebraska and Kansas on the east, south to New Mexico and Arizona. 
Mainly apparently resident, but in the northern part of its range wanders errati¬ 
cally after the breeding season. 
State Records. —The first New Mexico magpies recorded were seen July 27, 
1820, on Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, near the head of the Mora 
River (in James, 1823, vol. 2, p. 80). The southernmost breeding range of the Mag¬ 
pie is found in northern New Mexico, where it breeds south to Mora (Abert); iRio 
Pueblo, 30 miles south of Taos at 7,800 feet, June 27, 1919 (Ligon); on the Santa Fe 
River 2 miles southwest of Santa Fe, at 6,800 feet, May, 1921 (Jensen)]; Espanola 
(Loring); Valle Santa Rosa (Bailey); [Bernalillo, July, 1918 (Leopold) ; Lake Burford, 
May 23-June 19,1918 (Wetmore)]; Fort Wingate (Henshaw); east to Raton (Coues) ; 
Halls Peak (Barber); Old Fort Union (McCauley); and along the edge of the Red 
River foothills near Koehler (Kalmbach). [Seen about Cimarron and found soon 
after, June 18, 1924, feeding young 3 miles southeast of Elizabethtown, where there 
