V °''sf 9 VI ] Warren, The Canada Jay. 1 3 



Though on the lookout for the nest of the ' Meat Hawk ' ever 

 since its acquaintance was first formed, never before had it by 

 any sign or action revealed its nesting place to me. Many a 

 long walk through almost impenetrable spruce swamps, flounder- 

 ing in several feet of soft snow too light for snowshoeing, had 

 been unrewarded. These birds had often been abundant around 

 the lumber camps and in company with the Blue Jay, were com- 

 mon about the houses during the fall and winter months ; but 

 their breeding habits remained a secret. Therefore this dis- 

 covery coming so unexpectedly after many fruitless searches was 

 all the more joyfully received. 



I was walking down the Wright-Davis railroad through a spruce 

 swamp at the time, and had come to a place known as the ' Sink,' 

 where a few years ago a large stretch of roadbed had suddenly 

 disappeared in the seemingly bottomless ' Muskey ' swamp, and 

 where the track is now laid on a mass of pine and tamarac logs, 

 the only means of support ; when my attention was attracted by 

 a flock of noisy Chickadees chasing through the trees. Looking 

 up, what should I see but a pair of Canada Jays pulling beard 

 moss and spider nests from some dead trees and making short 

 trips to a neighboring live spruce about 150 feet from the rail- 

 road track, where they were evidently building a nest. 



Taking a short circuit I reached a position where I could 

 watch their movements better without attracting attention. 

 They brought small sticks, beard moss, spider nests and strips of 

 bark from the trees and sphagnum moss from about the base of 

 the trees where not covered with snow, and deposited all of this 

 in a bunch of branches at the end of a limb,— a peculiar reversed 

 umbrella-shaped formation commonly seen in the small spruce 

 trees, probably caused by some diseased condition of growth. 

 The female arranged the material, pressing it into the proper 

 shape and weaving it about the small twigs to form a safe sup- 

 port. Though the birds obtained the material so near, where it 

 was abundant, yet they carefully picked up any which accidentally 

 fell from the nest, and there were no signs of sticks or any frag- 

 ments of nesting material at any time during the construction of 

 the nest. 



My first observation was short, owing to the cold weather. A 



