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io THE CONDOR VoL. IX and Quercus u. gambeh') which gives way to pition (Pinus edulis) and juniper (funiperus occidentalis) further down the river; while on the other side the mesa s.upports a growth of Pinus jqexilig which in turn gives way to the pifion and juniper, with some scrub oak iu the neutral zone. This environment and an apparent immtmity from the small boy and the gunner makes a condition very favorable to the study of the magpie. Where not disturbed these birds become quite tame and display a familiarity which borders on contempt. On the Fort Lewis school grounds no one is allowed to molest them and they dispute the kitchen scraps with the chickens and cats. For a time I cut all the meat used in the school and the magpies would be on hand every morning at the meat house for the waste pieces of meat, fat and bone. They would drive away the kittens but were more foxy with the old cats, one bird at- tracting the feline attention while another annexed the meat. They were rather familiar about the government kitchen and showed decided affection for the garbage barrel, When the pigs were fed was their opportunity. O?e morning when the snow was three feet deep on the level and the thermometer twelve de- grees minus, I counted over one hundred of the birds at, ou and in the pig pen. The pigs were too busy to resent their presence and some carried from one to three of the birds about on their backs?a convenient footwarmer for the magpies! All winter the pig pen was a rendezvous for from 75 to t25 of the birds and a few were on hand for meals during spring and summer tho most of them had then scattered along the river for nesting. A peculiar feature ol their actions was a decided knowledge of the "dead line" and a fair idea of the range of a shotgun. Inside of the school grounds they ?vere tanre and confiding, allowing me to approach within a few yards of them. But outside they were bronco and kept about 75 or ?oo yards in the lead. I wished to secure a few specimens but of course respected the ground rules and also the birds' apparent trust in mankind. But out of bounds it was every bird for him- self, and even then it was sometime before a specimen was secured. This, of course, was before the nesting season. When that (,pe?ed the birds became more approachable, especially as they saw I did not molest them. The first nest of the season was found March 28, about half completed, [ judged. A week later it was full of snow. On March 3 r, I saw two more about as far advanced in construction as the first. The birds seemed to take their time in building, tho perhaps the freqneut snows at that time interrupted their work. For on April 28, the nest I fonnd just a month before contained seven eggs slightly incubated. The earliest instance of building was a nest with one egg on April 8, which nest had a complete set of eight eggs, April rS. During the latter half of April and the whole of May, Iexamined at least .thirty nests. I fouud that the earlier sets were largest, most of them containing eight eggs. Five of the seven nests inspected in April had eight eggs, while two had seven each. Most of the nests examined during the first half of May contained seveu eggs. Of nests ob- served after May I5, several had six eggs, two had five, and one co?tained four eggs: all complete sets. Nesting places varied, many of the birds building homes in big pine trees on the mesa, but the majority of nests were placed in the narrow-leaf cottonwoods along the river bottom. A few built in scrub oaks, some in willows, and others 'in black birches. The height from the ground at which the nests were built varied from four to sixty feet; sixteen or eighteen feet was a fair average for the nests examined. Nests built iu pines were generally highest and those in willows low-