File:Handbook of birds of the western United States, including the great plains, great basin, Pacific slope, and lower Rio Grande Valley (1902) (14746579351).jpg

Identifier: handbookofbirdso00bail (find matches)
Title: Handbook of birds of the western United States, including the great plains, great basin, Pacific slope, and lower Rio Grande Valley
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Bailey, Florence Merriam, b. 1863
Subjects: Birds -- West (U.S.)
Publisher: Boston New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: MBLWHOI Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MBLWHOI 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:
a conversational tone and varied inflections and it seems smallwonder that they learn to talk when kept in confinement. They are keen observers and eager investigators of anything newthat does not appear dangerous. If a line of traps are set throughthe sagebrush for small rodents and marked with bits or cotton onbush tops, the cotton soon catches their eyes and is promptly inves-tigated. It some of the traps have caught meadow mice they arecarried off to a convenient place, the mice eaten and the traps left-somelimcs causing a slight unpleasantness between magpie andmammalogist. In cases where the birds are common they take upthe traps so systematically that the collector has to leave his lineunmarked or devise a method obscure enough to escape their keeneyes. A flock of six or eight once came to examine into the blanketsof a naturalist sleeping on a haycock. Several of them lit on his headand one was so absorbed in its explorations that the awakened col-lector caught it in his hand.
Text Appearing After Image:
MAGPIE CROWS, JAYS, MAGPIES, ETC. 271 The birds arc quick to take advantage of circumstances, and havebeen found living largely on dead fish at Lake Winnemucca, Nevada,feeding with the chickens in Utah, and during deep snows in Ore-gon keeping their toes warm by spending a large share of their timeperched on the backs of horses and mules. 476. Pica nuttalli And. YELLOW-BILLED MAGPIE. Similar to the P. p. hndsonica, but smaller and with bill, and nakedskin back of eye brig-lit yellow. Lenyth : 10-18, wing- 7.-0-7.70, tail 9.30-10.80, exposedculrnen 1.04-1.17, tarsus 1.03-1.89. Distribution. — Resident in California west of the Sierra Nevada moun-tains from Sacramento Valley south to about latitude 34°, locally distrib-uted. t Nest. — Similar to that of kudsonica, with the addition of cow manureand inner bark of the cottonwood ; placed in oaks, sycamores, cotton-woods, and willows, usually 30 to 00 feet from the ground. Eggs: about7, like those of the black-billed, but a trifle sma

Note About Images