Jay WESTERN BIRDS 



birds' eggs, and young tender nestlings. And, too, he ia 

 fond of hens' eggs and, being a crafty fellow, he knows 

 that when one of these fowls cackles it means an egg, and 

 so these blue rascals will hang around in the vicinity of 

 the barn-yard and when the egg is laid will help them- 

 selves to it. 



It seems too bad to have to record so many bad things 

 against so handsome a bird, but Prof. Beal tells us that 

 as a fruit eater he has few equals. Cherries and prunes 

 are his especial delight and we must admit that he has 

 good taste. 



Prof. Beal watched in a cherry orchard from 9 a.m. to 

 4 P.M. on several occasions during the cherry season, and 

 there was not an hour of the day that jays were not 

 going away with fruit and coming for more. In a prune 

 orchard, where a small ravine debouched from the 

 wooded hills, a continuous line of Jays was seen passing 

 from the hills down through the ravine to the orchard, 

 while a return line, each Jay bearing a prune, was flying 

 up the ravine to the woods, where, probably, the fruit 

 was secreted and left to rot. 



We are glad to know that these birds do not frequent 

 the orchards entirely for fruit, but that they are fond 

 of small green caterpillars, known as canker worms. It 

 is the habit of these worms, when the limb is jarred, to 

 drop to the ground on a thread spun for that purpose. 

 In an apple orchard infested with these worms the Jays 

 were doing yeoman work eating them. As they lighted 

 in the tree the worms spun down, and the birds followed 

 after them. In the case of one Jay they filled 90 per 

 cent of the stomach contents. 



It is well for the birds, and the ranchers, that the 

 fruit depredations occur only where the ranch is near 

 a canyon, the chosen home of Jays, as well as many other 

 species. Ordinarily, I do not believe that the big blue 

 birds do much damage to fruit. Certainly they never 



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