File:Birds and nature in natural colors - being a scientific and popular treatise on four hundred birds of the United States and Canada (1913) (14565810197).jpg

Identifier: birdsnatureinnat05chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature in natural colors : being a scientific and popular treatise on four hundred birds of the United States and Canada
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds -- North America
Publisher: Chicago : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
mountainous regionsof the United States and Canada. Comparatively little has been written aboutthe habits of this bird owing to its shyness and retiring disposition. Naturalistsfind it difficult to visit the breeding grounds while the birds are laying their eggsor rearing their young. Their food consists almost entirely of pine seeds, which they dexterouslyextract from cones, hence the range of the birds from year to year varies,according to the abundance of pine cones. The female guards her eggs soclosely that it is possible to remove the bird from her nest with the hand. Likethe Canada jay and magpie, the nutcracker is possessed of great cunning, andis a restless, uneasy fellow. In March and April when the snow is still deep on the mountain slopes, thenutcracker is constructing a warm nest in the densest part of some coniferoustree. In appearance the nest might readily be mistaken for that of a squirrel,being a substantial, warm structure in which the birds lay two to four eggs. 812
Text Appearing After Image:
580 CLARKES NUTCRACKER. (Nucifraga columbiana) About H Life-size. The California VVoodpecker He is a handsome bird, and if there were not so many of his species hewould attract a great deal of attention. He has a bright red head, black andwhite body, and a needle-pointed tail. Ihe tail supports him in a perpendicularposition on the side of a tree while he is hammering, or rather, chiseling, ahole in its bark. All woodpeckers can drive deep holes into trees or stumps, but the Cali-fornia woodpecker surpasses them all as a hole-digger; he not only digs the holel)ut he fills it up with a nut or an acorn. While a great many other birds have the hole-digging instinct, there arefew of them that possess the hole-filling instinct. The blue jays and thesquirrels have a habit of accumulating supplies, and you may see them, almostany day in autumn, snatching the acorns from twigs and branches. The sameinstinct prompts this woodpecker to lay in his stores of acorns. Some peojjlesay that he never

Note About Images