38 Bird-Life in Labrador. 



enough for a dozen ordinary birds. Though this jay appears 

 to be of tolerably large size yet the body is very small ; the 

 feathers, being long, downy, and fluffy, enable the bird to ruf- 

 fle them up so as to present the appearance of being fully 

 twice its real size. A double protection is thus presented 

 against the extreme cold weather of this coast. They are 

 more or less common everywhere in the interior, and the far- 

 ther inland we went the more abundant and tamer they ap- 

 peared to be. The people from these interior cabins told 

 great stories of Sir Jack, who was evidently a great favorite 

 with them in spite of the harsh words that they occasionally 

 employed regarding him, though I failed to learn in what 

 respect he so greatly annoyed them. They said that they 

 were everywhere common about their huts, in the thickets 

 around, and would often come into the very dooryard and 

 pick up crumbs that might be thrown to them there. At these 

 "Winter quarters" the dwellers always have a number of 

 dogs, which require to be fed once a day from pieces of old 

 seal or whale meat that has been frozen and carefully pre- 

 served for them. In order to keep and protect this dogs' 

 meat a simple raised platform, six or eight feet from the 

 ground, is erected on four poles, and the meat simply thrown 

 upon it and fed to the dogs, cut up upon some billet of wood 

 with a hatchet, in frozen chunks just as it is. Over and 

 on these stages the ravens and jays alight in perfect crowds. 

 Now, why it should particularily exasperate the indwellers of 

 the cabins to see this small jay slyly thieving a few pieces of 

 meat I can not see. They can not make very great inroads 

 upon it ; yet, in answer to the question as to why the jay ex- 

 asperated them so, the cry always was : " They steal the dogs' 

 meat." I strongly suspect that the sentiment had more 

 words than meaning to it, and the true relation between the 

 people and these birds was rather as when one quarrels good- 

 naturedly with an intimate friend. I saw stragglers all 

 through the Winter, and have no doubt but that it breeds 

 abundantly inland during the Summer. 



