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Their habits and their familiarity with mankind can be 

 judged from the following from "The American Field." 

 Anyone familiar with Canada Jays can vouch for its truth. 

 "He will eat anything from soap to plug tobacco. His ap- 

 petite and capacity to store away food is beyond belief. 

 One day we had a dozen large salmon trout hung up to dry, 

 but being absent from camp for a few hours we returned to 

 find four Whiskey Jacks had totally annihilated our fish. 

 They would fly oft' with pieces half a large as themselves 

 and in a few minutes return for more. I have fed them 

 small bits until they could hardly fly enough to get to a tree. 

 Our pork, soap, tobacco and other provisions were unsafe 

 in their sight and reach. Our Indians used to say: 'Him 

 eat moccasins, fur cap. matches, anytink'." 



In regard to the white-headed Rocky ^lountain Jay, Mr. 

 Frank M. Drew says: "In autumn, when on his first tour 

 of inspection about the house, he hops along in a curious 

 sidelong manner, just like a schoolgirl in a slow hurry. 

 White-headed, grave and sedate, he seems a very paragon of 

 propriety, and if you appear to be a suitable personage, he 

 will be apt to give you a bit of advice. Becoming confi- 

 dential, he sputters out a lot of nonsense in a manner which 

 causes you to think him a veritable 'Whiskey Jack;' yet 

 when he is so disposed, a more bland, mind-his-own-business 

 appearing bird will be hard to find, as will also be many 

 small articles around camp after one of his visits, for his 

 whimsical brain has a great fancy for anything which may 

 be valuable to you but perfectly useless to him." 



While everyone admits the great havoc wrought by these 

 jays, their very impudence, boldness and audacity are so 

 interesting and often amusing that nobody has the desire 

 to kill them. 



