CANADA JAY 3 



carefully picked up any which accidentally fell from the nest, and there were no 

 signs of sticks or any fragments of nesting material at any time during the 

 construction of the nest. * * * 



By the 3rd of March the nest was well formed and smoothly lined with fine 

 grass and thin strips of bark. On the 12th it was completed, being beautifully 

 and warmly lined with feathers picked up in the forest and representing several 

 species of birds. Tliose of the Ruffed and Canada Grouse were in greatest evidence, 

 a feather of the latter being stuck in the edge of the nest where it showed quite 

 conspicuously. These birds had spent nearly a month building their nest, and 

 as a result the finished abode was perfectly constructed. It was large and sub- 

 stantial and yet not bulky, being a model of neatness and symmetry. The bulk 

 of the nest was composed of strips of bark, small sticks, an abundance of dry 

 sphagnum moss, some beard moss and grass, the whole being fastened securely 

 together by small bunches of spider nests and cocoons. The first lining was made 

 of thin strips of bark and fine grass, and this received a heavy coating of feathers, 

 making a nest so warm that a temperature far below the zero mark would have 

 no eflfect on the eggs it was to receive, as long as the mother brooded over them. 

 The small twigs growing from the cluster of branches in which the nest was 

 built gave it a rough appearance from below, but they served the purpose of 

 secure supports and as a screen (or concealment- As there were dozens of 

 similar masses of limbs in the trees all about, a good observer might pass under- 

 neath this tree a score of times, and never see the nest, though but a few feet 

 above his head. 



The nest described above is unusual in its location, out at the end 

 of a branch ; most nests have been found on horizontal branches against 

 the trunk, or in an upright crotch ; but otherwise the nest construction 

 is fairly typical of the species. Bendire (1895) says of a nest taken 

 by MacFarlane at Pelican Narrows: 



It was placed in a small spruce tree, near the trunk, about 9 feet from the 

 ground. It is composed of small twigs, plant fibers, willow bark, and quite a 

 mass of the down and catkins of the cottonwood or aspen, this material constituting 

 fully one-half of the nest. The inner cup is lined with finer material of the 

 same kind and Jays* feathers, which are easily recognized by their fluffy ap- 

 pearance. * ♦ * A nest taken near Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine, is com- 

 posed externally of bits of rotten wood, mix^d with tree m.oss, plant fibers, and 

 catkins, and is lined with similar but finer materials. 



Oliver L. Austin, Jr. (1932), records several Labrador nests; one 

 was lined with "down, feathers, hair, fur and strips of the inner bark 

 of willow felted together." Of another, he says: "Nest of juniper 

 twigs, wood moss, rotten wood, grass, and lined with partridge feathers 

 [doubtless spruce grouse] ; 4 feet from the ground in a white spruce, 

 no other tree within ten yards." 



The above descriptions would apply very well to half a dozen or so 

 nests that I have examined in museums and in my own collection. 

 There is a nest in the Thayer collection in Cambridge, taken near Innis- 

 fail, Alberta, on March 1, 1903, when the thermometer was 32° below 



