The Crow Tribe. 41 



The pine-cutters of the North have a great aversion 

 to him too, for when hard pinched by the cold, these 

 birds swarm about their camps, and are bold enough 

 to carry off the meat roasting before the fire. They 

 appear to have many of the characteristics of the 

 Magpie, and the same propensity for hiding things, 

 especially articles of food, which they will deposit in 

 some out-of-the-way places, sticking an acorn here 

 and a beech-nut there in a dust-hole, or a snail be- 

 tween splinters of a log. It cannot be denied that 

 they are very sagacious birds ; and they have great 

 powers of imitation, and also a most flexible voice, 

 producing very soft and musical notes, and imitating 

 the harshest screamings of the Hawk and the terrified 

 cries of a little bird to perfection, thereby setting all 

 the birds around them in a tumult. In confinement 

 the Blue Jay will learn to talk, and if kindly treated 

 becomes very affectionate to its owner, and will even 

 learn to be on friendly terms with birds which in its 

 wild state it would devour. One kept for some time 

 by Mr. Wilson would permit a Baltimore Oriole to 

 pull its whiskers and take all sorts of liberties with it. 

 The Blue Jay should be kept on the same food as the 

 English Jay ; it is partial to fruit and nuts, but in its 

 wild state devours more animal than vegetable food. 



A nearly allied species is found in Canada, but it is 

 far inferior in beauty to the Blue Jay. This is the 

 Perisoreus Canadensis, the CANADA JAY or WHISKY 



