504 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
camp on a log, running back and forth chasing sphynx moths that were 
feeding from the larkspurs bordering the log. Later in the season, 
on our way down the mountains, we found the Nutcrackers on their way 
down for pinyon nuts. 
The following year, when we visited Wheeler Peak amphitheater 
in the Taos Mountains, on July 20, they were flying about busily at 
timberline, 12,000 feet altitude, and about the rock slides and grassy 
slopes above, where grasshoppers were abundant. A few were seen 
as low as our camp, which was at 11,400 feet, flying back and forth 
through the spruce woods and hunting for food on the ground. In listen¬ 
ing to their voices I was impressed with the immature tones mingled 
with the calls of the adults. What did that mean from such early 
breeders? On July 27, while we were breakfasting around the camp 
fire further evidence was afforded us. One of the birds flew into a small 
spruce only a few rods away, and looked around with surprising calmness 
to see what we had to offer. As we were commenting on its unguarded 
youthful air, in flew another which, from its clearer coloration, we 
recognized instantly as an adult. The parent was evidently alarmed 
at finding the young one in such dangerous quarters, and whisked it 
out of camp before it had time to remonstrate. As we watched the 
pair, the young one fluttered its wings for food. Moreover, small 
parties, apparently families, were going about together at timberline 
the third week of July, so the broods of the year had not all been set 
adrift in the world. As the birds breed so early—some of them in 
February—these may well have been second broods, although far 
enough along to be quite ready for the vertical migration prompted 
by an early mountain winter and a meager food supply. 
Though we saw only a few of the Nutcrackers that had come down 
from timberline at 12,000 feet to the level of camp—11,400 feet—the 
last of July, when we descended the mountains w T e found others ahead 
of us, as we had the previous year. The first week in August we 
occasionally heard them atrl0,700 feet on Lake Fork, and on August 
9 saw several families (?) of four or six flying over Hondo Canyon at 
8,200 feet. On August 10 we found them still lower, at 7,900 feet. And 
as we went north up the range through the nut pine country, we found 
many flying about in places where there were cones that either they 
or Pinyon Jays had apparently hammered open to get the delicious 
little nuts. 
But while some of the Nutcrackers had descended to the pinyon 
belt in early August, a number were found on August 20 in the Culebra 
Mountains from about 9,000 feet to above timberline, where they 
seemed to be still eating seeds from the cones of foxtail pines; one was 
seen on September 8 at about 10,000 feet on the headwaters of the 
