THE ORIOLES, BLACKBIRDS, CROWS, AND JAYS. 171 



beneficial through their destruction of mice and other rodents. 

 (3) They are valuable occasionally as scavengers. 1 ' 



The Magpie, ranging from Arizona to Alaska and from the 

 Rocky Mountains to the coast, except a part of California in 

 which it is replaced by the yellow-billed variety known as 

 Nuttall's magpie, although of handsome appearance, has some 

 traits that are utterly disreputable and scarcely one that may 

 be called valuable. He is a thief, stealing the hunter's game, 

 the traveller's supplies, even his very dinner before him. 

 Worse than all, he is an assassin, a torturer without a heart, 

 merciless. Young birds are tidbits for him. With bound- 

 less audacity he assaults horses and mules, galled by their 

 harnesses and reduced by continuous packing over rough 

 trails, lacerating their raw flesh and sometimes even going so 

 far as to put out their eyes. If people will have cage-birds, 

 here is a proper victim. A criminal by nature, he may be 

 confined without compunction. His odd and knowing ways 

 make him an interesting pet, and after once becoming accus- 

 tomed to a cage, captivity does not appear a hardship for him. 

 Economically the magpie is a failure. 



The Blue-Jay is a resident over the whole of the United 

 States east of the Great Plains. Its home is in the woods, 

 though it makes frequent excursions to orchards and orna- 

 mental trees about the farmstead. These birds are seen to 

 best advantage among the nut trees in autumn. Then is the 

 time of their harvest. From tree to tree they go in troops, 

 calling in glee, swishing the branches, rattling down nuts, 

 forcing an opening by well-directed blows of their powerful 

 bills through hard shells, or busily engaged in hoarding sup- 

 plies in crevices for use in the coming season of want. Hearty, 

 energetic, versatile, the jay at this season is worth watching. 

 As to food, he is essentially a vegetarian by preference. 

 Nothing suits his taste quite so well as nuts, — acorns, chest- 

 nuts, beechnuts, and similar kinds, having rather thin shells. 

 Sometimes a flock will develop a taste for corn, and do more 



