122 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Food. — Major Bendire (1895) says: "Their food consists of grass- 

 hoppers and insects of various kinds, animal matter when obtainable, 

 wild fruits, seeds, and especially acorns. The latter probably form the 

 bulk of their subsistence throughout the greater portion of the year. 

 In the Suharita Pass, between the Santa Catalina and the Rincon moun- 

 tains, near Tucson, Arizona, I noticed about twenty feeding on the fig- 

 like fruit of the suahara, of which, like many other birds, they seemed 

 to be vary fond." 



Mr. Swarth (1904) writes: "Acorns form a staple article of diet 

 with these birds, and they can be seen everywhere under the oak trees 

 searching for their favorite food, progressing by means of strong, easy 

 hops; and poking under sticks and stones, eating what they can, and 

 hiding more for future use. On finding an acorn, a retreat is made to 

 some near-by limb or boulder, where the prize is held between the two 

 feet, and opened by a few well directed blows." 



Mrs. Bailey (1928) adds to the list of insects eaten "beetles, true 

 bugs, gray tree moths, and alfalfa weevils." And I once saw one at a 

 tent caterpillar's nest, picking out and eating the caterpillars. In their 

 fall and winter wanderings, Arizona jays come readily to feeding sta- 

 tions and become quite tame. Mr. Scott (1886) says that "a bone or 

 piec.e of meat hung in a tree that shades my house, induced daily visits 

 as long as the severer weather of the past year lasted." Earl R. Forrest 

 has sent me some fine photographs (pi. 21) of these jays that came 

 regularly to his feeding station at Oracle, Ariz. Doubtless Arizona 

 jays, like other jays, sometimes rob the nests of small birds and eat 

 the eggs or young, but very little positive evidence of this has been 

 published. It apparently does little, if any, harm to cultivated fruits, 

 or other human interests ; it helps to reforest barren areas by planting 

 acorns ; and it destroys some harmful insects ; its economic status is 

 neutral, or perhaps beneficial. Dr. Taylor tells me that they do some 

 damage to deer carcasses, or other meat hung up outdoors and unpro- 

 tected ; he saw them also eating and carrying off sausages that he had 

 thrown out. 



Behavior. — The Arizona jay is one of the most interesting birds of 

 the family, unique in more ways than one. It is the only one of our 

 jays that is markedly gregarious at all seasons, traveling about in 

 scattered flocks of 6 to 20 or more birds ; even in the breeding season 

 it lives under semicommunal conditions, with mutual interest in all the 

 nests in the community, helping to build and defend its neighbors' nests 

 and young, shrieking loud invectives at the intruder, with much bobbing 

 of heads and twitching of tails. All this is in marked contrast with the 

 solitary and secretive habits of other jays during the breeding season. 

 Mr. Swarth (1904) writes of its behavior: 



