steller's jay 57 



familiar blue jay of the East and share many of its interesting habits 

 and some of its bad manners. The subject of this sketch is the northern 

 race, extending its range in the Pacific coast region only as far south as 

 Washington. There are five other races that are found north of the 

 Mexican boundary. 



Steller's jay is the oldest known race of this species, named by 

 Gmelin in 1788, yet after more than 150 years it is far from being the 

 best-known subspecies. It was known by description to all the early 

 writers on American ornithology and was figured by Swainson and 

 Richardson (1831), Wilson and Bonaparte (1832), and Audubon 

 (1842). Bonaparte says, in his continuation of Wilson's "American 

 Ornithology," that "it is mentioned by Pallas as having been shot by 

 Steller, when Behring's crew landed upon the coast of America. It was 

 first described by Latham from a specimen in Sir Joseph Bank's collec- 

 tion, from Nootka Sound." 



The haunts of Steller's jay are chiefly in the coniferous forests of 

 southern Alaska, British Columbia, and Washington as far south as 

 the Columbia River, where it begins to intergrade with the subspecies 

 carbonacea. But it is not wholly confined to the forests, as it often 

 ventures out into the clearings, orchards, and farms on its mischievous 

 raids for food. Bendire (1895) says: "It is usually a constant resident 

 and breeds wherever found. It is an inhabitant of the canyons and 

 pine-clad slopes of the higher mountains, and is not as often seen in 

 the deep forests as on their outskirts near water courses." 



Nesting. — We waited nearly 3 weeks for our ship to sail from Seattle 

 to the Aleutian Islands, but we made our headquarters in the meantime 

 at the little town of Kirkland, across Lake Washington from the city, 

 and spent our time profitably by collecting in the vicinity. At that time 

 much of this region was heavily wooded with a primeval forest of lofty 

 firs, but the greater part of it had been lumbered and had grown up to 

 small or medium-sized second-growth firs. Much of it had been cleared 

 and cultivated, with houses and little farms scattered through it. There 

 were two or three species of firs forming the principal forest growth, 

 with a considerable mixture of hemlock and a very handsome species 

 of cedar ; the deciduous growth consisted of large alders and some 

 maples and flowering dogwoods. Here we found Steller's jays quite 

 common and discovered several of their nests between April 30 and 

 May 20. The first nest we found, on April 30, was new but still empty ; 

 it was placed about 10 feet from the ground against the trunk of a small 

 fir in the coniferous woods. It had a bulky foundation of large sticks, 

 on which was a layer of dead leaves and mud anfl then a firmly woven, 

 deeply hollowed nest of coarse rootlets. Another nest was 14 feet up in 



