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 Whiskey John in Colorado

BY EDWARD R. WARRENI CRESTED BUTTE. COLORADO

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F you ask a western man whether he is acquainted with Whiskey John or Whiskey Jack, he will most likely say. "No: never heard of him." Ask him about Camp Robbers, and he will say "Yes" if he lives in the mountains of Colorado, for the bird does not, as a rule, come much below 10,000 feet. He lives

mostly in the heavy spruce timber and at once makes himself at home about your Camp or cabin. as Mrs. Hardy so vividly described in BikIyLORE for August. 1902.

Breeding while the snow is deep in the timber, no one ever sees their nests. Ornithologists are scarce in the mountains, and I imagine it would be quite a task to find the nest in the thickly branched trees. I have seen young just out of the nest in the middle of May, when there was still three

A CA.“ 1’ PET

or four feet of snow in the timber. at an altitude of nearly 11,000 fECL They are then in-the dark plumage Mrs. Hardy mentions. They are some- what ligbter in the fall, and I often think become grayer as they grow older; at least the very light-colored ones have a most venerable and patriarchal

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