Biological Pavers. I35 



old apple tree. I went to the tree to examine the nest and 

 found that it had been robbed of all its young birds. 



July 5, 1907, Lindsay saw a turtle-dove trying to fight a 

 jay from its nest in an elm tree near our house. The jay got 

 one of the dove's eggs and flew to a near-by fence. Most of 

 the contents of the eg^ spilled out before the jay reached the 

 fence. The boy begged me to let him take the gun and kill 

 the jay. I told him if we killed the jay that we would not get 

 any more observations. He said he had all the observations 

 he wanted on jays robbing nests and killing young birds and 

 that what he wanted when he saw a jay was a gun. 



BLUE JAYS KILL YOUNG CHICKENS. 



June 18, 1905, about eight A. M., as I walked back of the 

 barn, I saw a blue jay picking at something on a low shed 

 roof. It was a young chicken, less than a week old. The jay 

 flew into a near-by tree, leaving the chicken dead, with one 

 eye picked out and the skin torn from its neck and breast. 

 A few days before I had placed a hen and chickens under an 

 old peach tree in a box coop fixed up with a rat-proof wire 

 door; so I was somewhat puzzled when four or five of the 

 chickens had disappeared. I thought of cats and rats^ but 

 the day before I caught the real thief I found the mangled 

 body of a young chicken on the end of an old peach-tree stump. 

 This really put me to watching the jays, as I had noticed them 

 a number of times flying about when I went to feed the chick- 

 ens. It was not an uncommon thing for the jays, in winter 

 season, to light on the troughs where the chickens were fed 

 and help themselves. I watched for the jays every morning 

 but did not see them with another chicken, though all the 

 young chickens disappeared except^ three. I might say that 

 I did not try to protect the young chickens after I found that 

 the jays were taking them. When I let the little birds out 

 in the morning I would watch a while with the hope of seeing 

 a jay take one, as I wanted to see how the attack was made. 



On June 23, 1906, Dr. L. B. Powell, a neighbor of mine, and 

 an intelligent gentleman, reported to me that he had lost 

 about a dozen young chickens, less than a week old, that had 

 been killed by a pair of blue jays that had a nest in a tree in 

 his yard. After he saw the jays kill some of the young chick- 

 ens and pick their brains out, he shot the old blue jays and 

 took the young ones from their nest and pulled their heads 

 off. 



