500 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
They were abundant in the pinyon belt. Two birds collected had 
mainly fragments of kernels of pinyon nuts and a small quantity of 
gravel in their stomachs. In one stomach was an entire kernel appar¬ 
ently just swallowed” (MS). During the month of October and 
the first part of November, 1904, Mr. Gaut reported great flocks 
inhabiting the foothill regions of the Manzano Mountains. Occasion¬ 
ally they would appear high up on the mountain sides. Their continual 
noisy jabbering could always be heard about the places where they 
congregated. Vast flocks watered all day long, September 30-October 
2, at a small watering tank a few miles north of the Ruins of Gran 
Quivera. They were without doubt the most numerous of any birds 
inhabiting the timbered parts of the Mesa Jumanes region. 
In 1906, we found the Blue Crows abundant during September and 
October in the nut pine and juniper part of the plateau country between 
Acoma and Old Fort Tularosa, wherever there was water, and also in 
some of the dry stretches between water. At Lathrop Spring literally 
thousands must have come to drink during the hours that we were 
there, from 2 p. m. to 9. a. m. There was no other water, so far as we 
could ascertain, within a radius of ten miles. The cries of the birds 
were constantly in our ears and streams of them were continually 
coming and going. One flock numbered about a hundred, and at the 
time other scattered birds were in sight, while a few moments later 
other flocks were seen issuing from the nut pines. 
If a long flight is to be taken, it is said, they go in a compact flock, 
but otherwise straggle along slowly low over the pinyons and junipers, 
as they are commonly seen. 
In feeding on a sage flat, Doctor Grinnell says, their method of 
spreading out and working zigzag over the ground in search of insects 
closely resembles that of the Brewer Blackbird. Large flocks have 
been seen by Mr. Henshaw engaged in catching insects on the wing. 
When feeding on their habitual food, the pinyons, early in autumn, 
before the frost has released the pine seeds from the cones, C. E. H. 
Aiken discovered, the Pinyon Jays are obliged to extract them, but 
later in the season they pick them up from the ground. Feeding in 
this way they are noisy and restless, “the rear birds in the flock con¬ 
tinually rising and flying over the others to the front, and in this manner 
the whole flock . . . moves as fast as a man can walk” (in Hen¬ 
shaw, 1875, pp. 332-334). 
At Fort Garland in October, 1874, Mr. Aiken saw a remarkable 
performance. There were “probably a hundred of these birds in a 
dense rounded mass, performing evolutions high in the air . . . 
sweeping in wide circles, shooting straight ahead, and wildly diving and 
whirling about, in precisely the same manner that our common pigeons 
do when pursued by a hawk. This singular performance with intervals 
