14 Warren, The Canada Jay. [£* 



sharp wind was blowing, accompanied by a light fall of snow, 

 and the temperature was hovering near the zero mark. Return- 

 ing in a few days, I found the birds still adding to their nest and 

 working in a manner which meant business. From this time on 

 my visits were as frequent as opportunity permitted. 



After the bulk of the nest was built the work went on more 

 leisurely, very little being accomplished on stormy days. The 

 birds were away feeding at the lumber camps in the morning 

 until about 10 o'clock and went back soon after 4 p.m. They 

 also gathered grubs from the floating logs at the ' Sink,' and I 

 have often seen them chasing a Woodpecker away from the trees 

 just when he had uncovered the worm he had worked so hard to 

 dig out. 



The notes of the Canada Jay are varied and pleasing, and they 

 are as hard to identify as those of his cousin, the Blue Jay. On 

 pleasant days the male trilled from a spruce top a song of sweetly 

 modulated notes wholly new to my ears. He always sang in 

 sotto voce, and it required an acquaintance with the songster to 

 realize that he, though so near, was the origin of those notes 

 which seemed to come from somewhere up in the towering pines 

 which surrounded this strip of swamp, so lost was the melody in 

 the whispering, murmuring voices of the pines. 



By the 3d of March the nest was well formed and smoothly 

 lined with fine grass and thin strips of bark. On the 12th it was 

 completed, being beautifully and warmly lined with feathers 

 picked up in the forest and representing several species of birds. 

 Those of the Ruffed and Canada Grouse were in greatest evi- 

 dence, a feather of the latter being stuck in the edge of the nest 

 where it showed quite conspicuously. These birds had spent 

 nearly a month building their nest, and as a result the finished 

 abode was perfectly constructed. It was large and substantial 

 and yet not bulky, being a model of neatness and symmetry. 

 The bulk of the nest was composed of strips of bark, small sticks, 

 an abundance of dry sphagnum moss, some beard moss and grass, 

 the whole being fastened securely together by small bunches of 

 spider nests and cocoons. The first lining was made of thin 

 strips of bark and fine grass, and this received a heavy coating 

 of feathers, making a nest so warm that a temperature far below 



