32 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



J. A. Munro writes to me: "Family groups, consisting of adults and 

 three or four dark young, visited our camp and became tame enough to 

 take food from the hand." 



Voice. — Bendire (1895) says that "while some of their notes are not 

 as melodious as they might be, the majority are certainly quite pleasing 

 to the ear, and I consider this species a very fair songster. I have 

 listened to them frequently, and have been surprised to find so much 

 musical ability." 



Mrs. Bailey (1902) writes : "The voices of the jays were heard around 

 the log house on Mount Hood from morning till night. Their notes were 

 pleasantly varied. One call was remarkably like the chirp of a robin. 

 Another of the commonest was a weak and rather complaining cry re- 

 peated several times. A sharply contrasting one was a pure, clear whistle 

 of one note followed by a three-syllabled call something like ka-we-ah. 

 The regular rallying cry was still different, a loud and striking two- 

 syllabled ka-whee." 



Taylor and Shaw (1927) give the gray jay credit for "a truly im- 

 pressive variety of calls and whistles." They refer to the robinlike call, 

 and add: "A cackling note whut whut kadakut is sometimes given. Very 

 unusual ejaculations are their retezst, ritizzt or reckekekekz. Their 

 whistled calls may be rendered tvheet zvheet, tseeiik or zvheeup, and very 

 commonly wheeoo wheeoo. The notes are clear and can be heard for 

 some distance through the forest." 



CYANOCITTA CRIST ATA BROMIA Oberholser 

 NORTHERN BLUE JAY 



Contributed by Winsor Marrett Tyler 

 Plates 6-10 



HABITS 



The blue jay is a strong, healthy-looking bird, noisy and boisterous. 

 He gives us the impression of being independent, lawless, haughty, even 

 impudent, with a disregard for his neighbors' rights and wishes — like 

 Hotspur, as we meet him in Henry IV, part 1. 



To be sure, the jay has his quiet moments, as we shall see, but his 

 mercurial temper, always just below the boiling point, is ever ready to 

 flare up into rage and screaming attack, or, like many another diplomat, 

 beat a crafty retreat. He is a strikingly beautiful bird — blue, black, and 

 white, big and strong, his head carrying a high, pointed crest which in 

 anger shoots upward like a flame. Walter Faxon long ago told me of a 



