But the Crows and Oregon Jays were the regular habitues of the place. When resting from his labors a solitary Crow would often perch on the tip of a bare spar on the crest of the cliff, apparently quite satisfied with his own society, but I never saw a Jay there, and one whom I did see separated from his band for a moment fairly made the welkin ring with shouts for his clan. Several Clark's Crows were often at the table with the Jays, but while I never saw a Crow disturb a Jay, a Crow would often fly with animation at a newcoming fellow Crow. This was a surprise to me, for on Mt. Shasta I had seen the Nutcrackers hunting in bands quite as the Jays did here. But on the wide lava slopes of Shasta there were, doubtless, grasshoppers enough for all the world, while here the feast was restricted to the foot of one cliff on the mountain—quite a different matter. When I spoke to Mrs. Langille about this difference in disposition, she acquiesced as if it were an old story to her, unhesitatingly denominating the Jays 'generous fellows,' and the Crows 'greedy' ones.
OREGON JAYS
Photographed from nature by Florence A. Merriam
One Crow made a special exhibition of egoistic tendencies. He was engaged in hurriedly carrying off future breakfasts for himself when a party of brother Crows appeared. He had been working with absorption, flying back and forth to the table with eager haste, being gone less than half a minute at a time, but on the arrival of his friends dropped his work and devoted himself to driving them from the field. Not content with keeping them from the table, he flew at them with a strange note of ominous warning when they sat quietly in the tree-tops. It seemed as if he were nervous lest they discover what he had been storing among the branches. When he had fairly routed the enemy he apparently acted on his fear of discovery, for, instead of placing his supplies near at hand as before, he flew out of sight with them. As before, he worked with nervous haste. As I looked down on the tree-tops from above it was impossible to see where he put all the food, but several times when he flew up in sight he seemed to be sticking small bits between the needles of the pines. As the bunches of needles are compact and stiff in this white-barked pine (Pinus albicaulis), this might be a safe temporary cache, but the winter gales that make it necessary to hold down the Inn with huge cables would presumably leave little biscuit between the needles of a pine.
The question is, do these birds—and others which hoard—really use their stores? The testimony of all who are in the field in winter is needed to clear up the matter. The first point to be determined is whether the individual birds winter where they store. The Nutcrackers, Mr. Langille informed me, do remain at the high altitudes all the year. As he said, it is stormy indeed when they cannot be seen sailing across the cañons or perched on the topmost branches of the trees, screaming and calling in their harsh way, always restless and seeming to resent any intrusion of man, beast, or fowl. On the other hand, he said that the Jays seldom remain at the high altitudes during the winter months, usually descending to lower elevations, where they flit about in flocks of from six to twenty, sounding their plaintive varied notes and whistles at all times.
CLARK'S CROW
Photographed from nature by Walter K. Fisher
Nevertheless, the storing of the Crows at this altitude was certainly much less systematic than that of the Jays. The Jays' movements were easy to follow, for they were concerted and regular. The Inn was on a ridge between two cañons, and commanded the birds' pathway. A band would come up from under the cliff at the top of the western cañon, cross over the ridge, and drop down into the eastern cañon, where they would fly over the tops of the firs till they disappeared from sight. They would be gone some little time, and then return empty-handed to repeat the performance.
The Jays talked a good deal in going back and forth, and their notes were pleasantly varied. One call was remarkably like the chirp of a Robin. Another of the commonest was a weak and rather complaining cry, repeated several times; and a sharply contrasting one was a pure, clear whistle of one note followed by a three-syllabled call, something like ka-wé-ah. The regular rallying cry was still different, a loud and striking two-syllabled ka-wheé. The notes of Clark's Crow often suggested the rattling of the Red-headed Woodpecker. The bird had a variety of kerring, throaty notes, and when disturbed, as at the unexpected sight of me at its dining-room, gave a loud, warning quarr. Besides these Woodpecker-like calls, it had a squawking cry similar to that of Steller's Jay.
The voices of the birds were often heard from the house as they got water from the hydrant in front of the Inn, the Jays frequently stopping on the way back from their cañon storehouse. Sometimes three Jays would suddenly appear overhead, drop noiselessly to the pool under the hydrant, and squatting close together fill their bills and then raise their heads to swallow. Though the Jays usually went to the pool for water, they would sometimes light on the hydrant and, leaning over, drink from the faucet, which Mrs. Langille always left dripping for their benefit. The Clark's Crows, so far as I noticed, always drank right from the faucet.