2 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



seen unless such places are explored. After about the first of July, family parties, 

 consisting of the two parents and four or five sooty-headed young, may be en- 

 countered roving through the open uplands and forests, keeping near together 

 in their search for food. With the approach of winter, when the young resemble 

 the adults, it seeks the vicinity of lumber camps, hunters' and squatters' cabins, 

 and settlements, where it becomes very tame and fearless. 



The above is mainly true of its haunts elsewhere, though it is not 

 always closely confined to coniferous swamps, even in the nesting 

 season. In the more northern portions of its range it is often found 

 in the opener upland forests, nesting sometimes in solitary trees or in 

 clumps of willows. In Labrador and in Newfoundland I found it com- 

 mon wherever there was any kind of coniferous growth, even where it 

 was scattered or stunted. 



Dr. Samuel S. Dickey tells me that in northern Alberta, where this 

 species is common, it is often found in the higher, drier stands of aspen, 

 balsam poplar, canoe birch, mountain-ash, spruce and fir trees, and in 

 pure stands of jack pine (Finns banksiana). 



Nesting. — The Canada jay nests so early in the season, while the 

 snow is still deep in the northern woods, that few of us have been able 

 to observe its nesting habits, in spite of the fact that it is an abundant 

 bird over a wide range. Its nesting site is usually remote from civili- 

 zation, the nest is usually well hidden in dense coniferous forests, and 

 extensive traveling on snowshoes is very difficult at that season. More- 

 over, the birds, though exceedingly tame and sociable at other seasons, 

 are quiet, retiring, and secretive during the nesting season. 



One of the earliest and most interesting accounts of the home life of 

 the Canada jay is that given by Oscar Bird Warren (1899), who, on 

 February 22, 1898, found a pair of these birds building their nest near 

 Mahoning, Minn, (see Barrows, 1912, p. 416). The birds were dis- 

 covered while Warren was walking down a railroad track through a 

 spruce swamp : 



Looking up, what should I see but a pair of Canada Jays pulling beard moss 

 and spider nests from some dead trees and making short trips to neighboring 

 live spruce about 150 feet from the railroad track, where they were evidently 

 building a nest. 



Taking a short circuit I reached a position where I could watch tlieir move- 

 ments better without attracting attention. They brought small sticks, beard moss, 

 spider nests and strips of bark from the trees and sphagnum moss from about 

 the base of the trees where not covered with snow, and deposited all of this in a 

 btmch of branches at the end of a limb, — a peculiar reversed umbrella-shaped 

 formation commonly seen in the small spruce trees, probably caused by some 

 diseased condition of growth. The female arranged the material, pressing it into 

 the proper shape and weaving it about the small twigs to form a safe support. 

 Though the birds obtained the material so near, where it was abundant, yet they 



