al 
866 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
funeral livery ; and it seemed to me, when the clear notes of 
the bird were echoed from hill-side to hill-side in the forest, 
that it was wandering like a forest elf through the trees, 
mourning the decay of all the charms that had made them 
so beautiful through the spring and summer. 
About the first or second week in May, the Blue Jay com- 
mences building. The nest is usually placed in a fork of a 
low pine or cedar, in a retired locality: it is loosely con- 
structed of twigs and coarse roots, and lined with the same 
materials, but of a finer quality, and sometimes a few pieces 
of moss or a few leaves. The eggs are four or five in 
number. ‘Their color is generally light-green, with spots of 
light-brown ; sometimes a dirty brownish-gray, spotted with 
different shades of brown and black. The dimensions vary 
from 1.20 by .85 to 1 by .80 inch. But one brood is reared 
in the season. 
PERISOREUS, BonApaARTE. 
Perisoreus, BONAPARTE, Saggio di una dist. met. (1831). (Type Corvus Cana- 
densis ?) - 
Feathers Jax and full, especially on the back, and of very dull colors, without 
any blue; head without distinct crest; bill very short, broader than high; culmen 
scarcely half the length of the head, straight to near the tip, then slightly curved; 
gonys more curved than culmen; bill notched at tip; nostrils round, covered by 
bristly feathers; tail about to the wings, graduated; tarsi rather short, but little 
longer than the middle toe. 
This genus includes the species of dullest colors among all of our Jays. It has, 
too, the shortest bill, and with this feature bears a very strong resemblance, in many 
respects, to some of the Titmice. 
PERISOREUS CANADENSIS.— Bonaparte. 
The Canada Jay. 
Corvus Canadensis, Linneus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 158. Wils. Am. Orn., III. 
(1811) 88. Aud. Orn. Biog., II. (1884) 53; V. (1889) 208. 
Perisoreus Canadensis, Bonaparte. List (1838). J0., Consp. (1850) 375. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Tail graduated; lateral feathers about one inch shortest; wings a little shorter 
than the tail; head and neck, and forepart of the breast, white; a plumbeous brown 
nuchal patch, becoming darker behind, from the middle of the crown to the back, 
from which it is separated by an interrupted whitish color; rest of upper parts ashy- 
ed a 
