58 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



a thick fir in an open situation in tlie coniferous woods ; it held four 

 young only a few days old ; the old bird remained on the nest until I 

 almost touched her, when she iiew olf and scolded me with a mewing 

 squawk. We found one other new nest and several old ones, all sim- 

 ilarly located and constructed. 



There are three sets in my collection from the same general region. 

 In one case the nest was 10 feet from the ground and 15 feet out on a 

 limb of a small lone hr on the edge of a prairie pond, near some mixed 

 fir and oak growth, and 100 yards from a house. One of the others 

 was 12 feet up in a green spruce; and the nest from which the other 

 was taken was said to have been on a shelf in a woodshed! 



Published accounts of the nesting of Steller's jay are not numerous, 

 but the following from D. E. Brown (1930) is worth quoting: "This 

 species usually nests at a moderate height. The majority of nests will 

 be found from eight to fifteen feet from the ground, but the writer has 

 found them only two feet up, and has seen them well over one hundred 

 feet from tlie ground on the horizontal branches of giant firs. 



"In the early part of the season coniferous trees are used almost ex- 

 clusively. * * * Later when the deciduous trees are in full leaf they 

 are quite often used. This fact is brought out by the number of old 

 nests that are found in the fall when the leaves have shed." 



The location of one nest, well within the city limits of Seattle, puz- 

 zled him until it was found "only two feet from the ground in the center 

 of a mass of salal bushes and blackberry vines. He continues: 



The birds nest regularly in Seattle city parks often on trees or branches that 

 lean over trails that are used by hundreds of people daily. I have seen at least 

 three such nests that were so low that they could be touched with the hand from 

 the trail. * * * 



The nest is usually very large and sometimes composed of twigs so large it 

 hardly seems possible that the birds could handle them. A very thick layer of 

 mud weighs down and cements the nest together, and it is lined with rootlets that 

 are worked in while wet. The very start of the nest is always some light colored 

 material such as cedar bark, leaves of the maple ti-ee, shreds of decayed wood 

 or pieces of newspaper. Samuel F. Rathbun of Seattle once found a nest in 

 one of the parks that had a handkerchief worked into its foundation, a variation 

 somewhat unusual in nest material. 



Mr. Rathbun has sent me his notes on several nests of Steller's jay, 

 and says: "With one exception all the nests of this jay I have found 

 were placed in coniferous trees, usually firs of not large size, and oftener 

 the location of the tree would be in a rather dense part of the wood. 

 Often the place selected for a nest is the fork formed by several small 

 branches jutting from the trunk wherein are lodged a number of dry, 

 dead leaves, and on these is placed a little platform of twigs that forms 



