Blue and Steller's Jays 781 



djah, djah, but during the nesting season he becomes more quiet and retiring. 

 It is a hardy bird, generally a resident throughout its range, though some of the 

 more northern birds may migrate to the southward for a few months. It prefers 

 mixed woodland and the borders of clearings, being for the most part very shy 

 and difficult of approach ; but in localities where it is not much molested, as in 

 certain of the middle Western States, it becomes quite tame, coming about gar- 

 dens and houses in the towns and villages. They are very fond of mobbing 

 large birds, especially Hawks and Owls, and no sooner is one discovered than 

 a few wild cries call all within hearing, but occasionally the tables are turned 

 and an over-venturesome Jay makes a meal for a Hawk. Aside from their 

 ordinary notes they have a great variety of 

 calls and cries, imitating to perfection the 

 alarm notes and cries of distress of other 

 birds, and seem to take mischievous delight 

 in causing consternation among them. The 

 Blue Jay is perfectly omnivorous, feeding on 

 offal, insects, grasshoppers, grubs, worms, 

 mice, the eggs and young of smaller birds, 

 as well as acorns, beechnuts, Indian corn, 

 and various fruits. They are especially 

 active in spying out the nests of other birds 

 and often despoil them, but they are care- 

 ful enough in concealing their own nests, 

 placing them in dense coniferous jungles, 

 thorny and vine-clad thickets, or thick 

 shrubbery. The nest is rather bulky, being 

 composed of small twigs, rootlets, etc., lined 

 with wool, strings, rags, leaves, and grasses, 

 and sometimes a little mud ; the three to six 



eggs are pale olive-green or brownish ashy, more or less blotched with various 

 shades of brown. A smaller and paler race, known as the Florida Blue Jay (C. 

 c. florincola), inhabits the peninsula of Florida. 



Steller's Jay. The only other species of the genus is Cyanocitta stelleri, 

 which in some seven or eight more or less well-marked geographic races spreads 

 over most of western North America and southward through the highlands of 

 Mexico and Guatemala. In coloration the typical form has the head, includ- 

 ing the long crest, neck, and upper chest, black, the back and scapulars plain 

 sooty brown or grayish, and the rump and lower parts blue, while the wings 

 are various shades of blue, the coverts barred with black and without the white 

 tips as in the eastern Blue Jay; the various subspecies are based on differences 

 in size, the presence or absence of a white spot over the eye, etc. Steller's Jay 

 (C. stelleri), also known as the Mountain or Pine Jay, inhabits the coniferous 

 forests of the North Pacific coast district, from Puget Sound northward. "Like 

 its relative, the common Blue Jay," says Major Bendire, "it is an incessant 

 scold, never at rest, fully as inquisitive, prying into the domestic affairs of other 



FIG. 216. 



American Blue Jay, Cyano- 

 citta cristata. 



