90 Bird Comrades 



"The real food is composed of 24.3 pe.r cent of animal 

 matter and 75.7 per cent of vegetable matter, or a trifle 

 more than three times as much vegetable as animal. The 

 animal food is chiefly made up of insects, with a few 

 spiders, myriapods, snails, and small vertebrates, such 

 as fish, salamanders, tree frogs', mice, and birds. Every- 

 thing was carefully examined which might by any possi- 

 bility indicate that birds or eggs had been eaten; but 

 remains of birds were found in only two, and the shells 

 of small birds' eggs in only three of the 292 stomachs. 

 One of these, taken on February tenth, contained the 

 bones, claws, and a little skin of a bird's foot. Another, 

 taken on June twenty-fourth, contained the remains of a 

 young bird. The three stomachs with bird's eggs were 

 collected in June, August, and October, respectively. 

 The shell eaten in October belonged to the egg of some 

 larger bird like the ruffed grouse and, considering the 

 time of year, was undoubtedly merely an empty shell 

 from an old nest. Shells of eggs which were identified as 

 those of domesticated fowls, or some bird of equal size, 

 were found in eleven stomachs, collected at irregular 

 times during the year. This evidence would 'seem to 

 show that more eggs of domesticated fowls than of wild 

 birds are destroyed, but it is much more probable that 

 these shells were obtained from refuse heaps about farm- 

 houses." 



Mr. Beal's dissections are very significant, proving 

 that the jay is not only not so destructive of eggs and 

 bantlings as was supposed, but also that he destroys 



