10 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



and seldom flapping its wings except when rising from the ground into 

 a tree. Its ordinary method of travehng through the woods is to sail 

 down from the top of one tree to the lower part of another, and then to 

 hop upward from one branch to another, often in a spiral fashion, until 

 it attains sufficient height to make another scaling flight. Its broad 

 wings and fluffy plumage seem to make it very buoyant and enable it to 

 float upward at the end of a sailing flight. 



Dr. Dickey says (MS.) that Canada jays seem to like to associate with 

 such small birds as myrtle warblers, winter wrens, chickadees, purple 

 finches, and some of the northern flycatchers. Lucien M. Turner (MS.) 

 tells of feeding one on meat until it became so tame as to perch on one 

 hand and eat out of the other. 



Voice. — ^William Brewster (1937) writes: 



It has a variety of notes, most of them shrill and penetrating, the commonest 

 a loud, hawk-Hke whistle, very like that of the Red-shouldered Hawk, but 

 clearly not, as in the case of one of the Blue Jay's calls, an imitation of it. 

 Another common cry is a succession of short, rather mellow whistles, eight or 

 ten in number all given in the same key. It frequently utters a loud "Cla, da 

 da, da, da, da, da," not unlike the cry of the Sparrow Hawk. It also scolds 

 very much like a Baltimore Oriole. Twice I heard one scream so nearly like 

 a Blue Jay that I should probably have been deceived had not the bird been 

 very near and in full sight of me. In addition to these notes, it also has a low, 

 tender, cooing noise which I have never heard except when two birds are near 

 together, evidently talking to one another. 



The Canada jay is credited with being something of a mimic, imitating 

 more or less successfully the notes of the red-tailed, red-shouldered, and 

 broad-winged hawks, as well as the songs of the small birds that it hears. 

 Several writers have referred to its rather pleasing, twittering song, of 

 which Mr. Warren (1899) writes: "On pleasant days the male trilled 

 from a spruce top a song of sweetly modulated notes wholly new to my 

 ears. He always sang in sotto voce, and it required an acquaintance 

 with the songster to realize that he, though so near, was the origin of 

 those notes which seemed to come from somewhere up in the towering 

 pines which surrounded this strip of swamp, so lost was the melody in 

 the whispering, murmuring voices of the pines." 



Ernest Thompson Seton (1890) has heard it give a chuck, chuck note, 

 like that of a robin; Knight (1908) says that "their cry is a querulous 

 'quee-ah' 'kuoo' or *wah,' uttered as they perch on top of some tree or 

 take flight." Langille (1884) adds to the list a note "sounding like 

 choo-choo-choo-choo." 



Field marks. — The Canada jay is not likely to be mistaken for any- 

 thing else in the region where it lives. It is a little larger than a robin 

 and much plumper. Its general color is gray, with a blackish hood and 



