200 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



" It robs every nest it can find, sucks the eggs like the crow, or tears 

 to pieces and devours the young birds. A friend once wounded a 

 Grouse (Bonasa umbellus), and marked the direction which it followed, 

 but had not proceeded two hundred yards in pursuit, when he heard 

 something fluttering in the bushes, and found his bird belabored by two 

 blue jays who were picking out its eyes. The same person once put a 

 flying squirrel into the cage of one of these birds, merely to preserve it 

 for one night ; but on looking into the cage about eleven o'clock next 

 day he found the mammal partly eaten. A Blue Jay at Charleston de- 

 stroyed all the birds of an aviary. One after another had been killed, 

 and the rats were supposed to have been the culprits, but no crevice 

 could be seen large enough to admit one. Then the mice were accused, 

 and war was waged against them, but still the birds continued to be 

 killed ; first the smaller, then the larger, until at length the Key west 

 Pigeons ; when it was discovered that a Jay which had been raised in 

 the aviary was the depredator. He was taken out and placed in a cage, 

 with a quantity of corn, flour and several small birds which he had just 

 killed. The birds he soon devoured, but the flour he would not conde- 

 scend to eat, and refusing every other kind of food, soon died. In the 

 north it is fond of ripe chestnuts, and in visiting the trees is sure to 

 select the choicest. When these fail it attacks the beech nuts, acorns, 

 peas, apples and green corn. In Louisiana they are so abundant as to 

 prove a nuisance to the farmers, picking the newly-planted corn, the 

 peas and the sweet potatoes, attacking every fruit tree, and even de- 

 stroying the eggs of pigeons and domestic fowls. The planters are in 

 the habit of occasionally soaking some corn in a solution of arsenic, and 

 scattering the seeds over the ground, in consequence of which many 

 Jays are found dead about the fields and gardens." 



In reference to the food of this species, Mr. E. A. Samuels * writes as 

 follows : " Its food is more varied than that of almost any other bird 

 that we have. In winter the berries of the cedar, barberry or black- 

 thorn, with the few eggs or cocoons of insects that it is able to find, 

 constitute its chief sustenance. In early spring the opening buds of 

 shrubs, caterpillars and other insects, afford it a meagre diet. Later in 

 the spring, and through the greater part of summer, the eggs and young 

 of the smaller birds constitute its chief food, varied by a few insects and 

 early berries. Later in the summer, and in early autumn, small fruits, 

 grains, and a few insects afford it a bountiful provender; and later in 

 the autumn when the frosts have burst open the burs of chestnuts and 

 beechnuts and exposed the brown ripe fruit to view, these form a palat- 

 able and acceptable food, and a large share of these delicious nuts fall 

 to the /portion of these busy and garrulous birds." 



The food materials of Jays which I have examined are given in the 

 following table : 



* Our Northern and eastern Birds, p. 365. 



