Biological Papers. 131 



different from those of Mr. Beal. The blue jay takes a very 

 great variety of food of both animal and vegetable kinds. The 

 kind of food eaten depends largely upon the kind the locality 

 furnishes during any particular season of the year. The food 

 of July and August, as a rule, is very different from that of 

 January and December. During the summer months the ani- 

 mal food, mostly insects, sometimes reached as high as sixty 

 to seventy-five per cent, of the total food mass. This same 

 per cent, was sometimes reached in case of fruit, especially 

 when blackberries and mulberries were being eaten. In win- 

 ter time, especially when the ground was frozen and covered 

 with snow, vegetable matter, chiefly corn, constituted the 

 great bulk of the jay's food. Again, the food of the jay birds 

 in and around the city of Lawrence varies considerably from 

 that of the jays that feed in the country districts. 



The food of twenty-seven jays killed the third week in Sep- 

 tember, 1907, some nine miles southwest of Lawrence, in a 

 wild, wooded district, was quite different from that of an 

 equal number of birds taken during the month of September 

 in and around the city of Lawrence. Over sixty per cent, of 

 the mass of the food of the birds taken in the country district 

 was made up of acorns. Only two stomachs contained even 

 a trace of corn. The stomachs of the birds taken in the city 

 showed over fifty per cent, of the food mass to be grain, 

 mostly corn. The birds taken in the country district had 

 eaten thirty per cent, insect food, and about twenty per cent, 

 of this was made up of black ground-beetles, such predacious 

 beetles as carabids being very common. There were also a 

 considerable number of smooth-bodied caterpillars, the larvse 

 of the common hummingbird, sphinx or hawk moths not be- 

 ing uncommon, some of which measured as much as two and 

 one-half inches in length. Grasshoppers, snails, snout and 

 long-horn beetle, ants, spiders — in fact, almost any insect, 

 even hairy worms, were occasionally found. The insect food 

 of the birds taken in the city was not over fifteen per cent, of 

 the food mass, dark-colored ground-beetles and grasshoppers 

 predominating. 



During the winter season the city blue jay takes almost any 

 kind of food that comes handy, feeding in the public roads, 

 the alleys, in back dooryards and in barn-yards. At this sea- 

 son of the year grain, mostly corn chop, makes up the bulk 

 of the food mass. However, such material as cooked meats, 



