46 BIRDS OF P. E. ISLAND. 



in the most expert manner, fishes smelts in the 

 brook, and delights in a nutting excursion in the 

 woods, while he never misses the opportunity of 

 a good meal on grasshoppers, locusts and June 

 bugs, on the sunny slopes of upland pastures. 



Our Crows gather in great rookeries in the 

 autumn. Until recently a grove in Charlottetown 

 Park was the trysting place for central Queen's 

 County. I have seen three thousand Crows going 

 at sundown, on a calm autumn evening, in one 

 long, black, silent stream of quivering pinions to 

 this favorite resting place. 



BLUE JAY. 

 ( Cyanscitta crista ta ) 



The bright - plumed Jay is one of our most 

 familiar birds. In winter he comes, like a chief- 

 tain from the wilds, with gay crest and dainty 

 steps, picking up refuse at our doors. Stray nuts 

 in the forest afford him food now, too. In 

 summer he feeds more luxuriously, robbing the 

 nests of feebler birds and devouring their helpless 

 young. It is part of his foraying tactics to imi- 



