278 LAND-BIRDS. 



HI. PERISOREUS. 



A. CANADENSIS. Canada Jay. " Whiskey-Jack."' A 

 resident of northern New England and tlie countries beyond.* 



a. 10-11 inches long. Ashy or leaden above ; dull gray 

 beneath. Head, and tips of tail and certain wing-feathers, 

 dull white ; but hind-head very dark. 



h. A nest of the Canada Jay, found by Mr. Boardman, 

 and described by Dr. Brewer, " is woven above a rude plat- 

 form of sticks and twigs crossed and interlaced, furnishing a 

 roughly made hemispherical base and periphery. Upon this 

 an inner and more artistic nest has been wrought, made of a 

 soft felting of fine mosses closely impacted and lined with 

 feathers." An Qgg in my collection measures 1.20 X .75 of 

 an inch, and is grayish, evenly marked with brown. Unlike 

 other specimens, it is green-tinted. 



c. The Canada Jays do not much inhabit New England, 

 so far as I know, except in northern Maine, where they are 

 resident. As Audubon has apparently had many opportuni- 

 ties of observing these birds, I shall here quote his biography 

 nearly in full, as I have already quoted one of Wilson's. " I 

 have found this species of Jay," says Audubon, " breeding in 

 the State of Maine, where many individuals belonging to it 

 reside the whole year, and where in fact so many as fifteen 

 or twenty may be seen in the course of a day by a diligent 

 person anxious to procure them. In the winter, their num- 

 bers are constantly augmented by those which repair to that 

 country from places farther north. They advance to the 

 southward as far as the upper parts of the State of New 

 York, where the person who first gave intimation to Mr. 

 Wilson that the species was to be found in the Union, shot 

 seven or eight one morning, from which number he presented 

 one to the esteemed author of the ' American Ornithology,' 

 who afterwards procured some in the same neighborhood. 



* The Canada Jay may be found at from still further north. The Canada 



all seasons throughout the more exten- Jay is said to have been seen in Massa- 



sive coniferous forests of northern New chusetts on several occasions, and there 



England, and in places is sometimes is one authentic record of a specimen 



very common, especially in autimm, taken near Cambridge, in October, 



when there is an evident migration 1889. — W. B. 



