°'i9if ^T General Notes. 405 



follows: " The occupants of a recently disturbed ant hill were excitedly 

 crawling about the hill and the adjacent cement walk. They were large, 

 and to a Blue Jay in a neighboring tree they must have looked luscious, for 

 flying down, the jay began to pick them up with an eagerness that seemed 

 to say that this was an opportunity that might come his way but once. 

 As rapidly as he could do it he seized the ants, with each capture Ufting a 

 wing, sometimes one, sometimes the other, and seemed to deposit his prey 

 among the feathers back of and underneath it. So quickly he worked and 

 with such evident eagerness to make the most of this rare occasion that, 

 as he lifted the wing, putting his bill among the feathers, it often seemed 

 that he must lose his balance and topple over backwards. But he kept 

 his poise, worked on with all speed and had laid in quite a store when a 

 passerby frightened him from his task. Whether this jay had only just 

 discovered the most convenient of all storehouses for his use or whether 

 this food was to be carried to the nest for the young, for it was nesting time, 

 he was most interesting." 



This Blue Jay was therefore taking advantage of the instinct of ants 

 when disturbed to fasten their jaws onto any object that presents itself. 

 It must be also that the snails here mentioned have a propensity for cling- 

 ing to the feathers among which they are placed. These three most inter- 

 esting observations suggest that numerous birds may have the same or 

 other wonderful habits about which we are ignorant. They should stimu- 

 late minute and careful research and comfort those who fear that all the 

 interesting things have already been discovered. — W. L. McAtee, Biologi- 

 cal Survey, Washington, D. C. 



