28 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



onids. The blue jay gathers its fruit from nature's orchard 

 and vineyard, and not from man's ; corn is the only vegetable 

 food for which the farmer suffers any loss, and here the dam- 

 age is small. In fact, the examination of nearly three hundred 

 stomachs shows that the blue jay certainly does far more 

 good than harm." 



In some localities the blue jay is called the Tree Planter. 

 He gets this designation because of his habit of burying nuts 

 and acorns. Mr. D. S. Smith of Crawfordsville, Indiana, told 

 me of an instance of this kind that came under his observation 

 which is interesting. It is his habit to feed the squirrels about 

 his home. One day he put out for them a pocket full of 

 chestnuts. While doing it he noticed that a blue jay was 

 watching him. Just as soon as he left the jay flew down and 

 got a chestnut which he carried some distance and buried in 

 the ground. He then looked around about for a leaf and 

 having found one took it and covered the hole in which he had 

 buried the chestnut; and this he repeated until he had carried 

 away about a dozen of the chestnuts. Why did he put leaves 

 over the holes in which he buried the chestnuts? 



