Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored 



Canada Jay 



(Perisoreus canadensis) Crow and Jay family 



Calledaho: WHISKY JACK OR JOHN ; MOOSE-BIRD; MEAT- 

 BIRD; VENISON HERON; GREASE-BIRD; CANADIAN 

 CARRION-BIRD; CAMP ROBBER 



Length — 1 1 to \2 inches. About iwo inches larger than the robin. 



Male and Female — Upper parts gray; darkest on wings and tail; 

 back of the head and nape of the neck sooty, almost black. 

 Forehead, throat, and neck white, and a few white tips on 

 wings and tail. Underneath lighter gray. Tail long. Plu- 

 mage fluffy. 



Range — Northern parts of the United States and British provinces 



of North America. 

 Migrations — Resident where found. 



The Canada jay looks like an exaggerated chickadee, and 

 both birds are equally fond of bitter cold weather, but here the 

 similarity stops short. Where the chickadee is friendly the jay is 

 impudent and bold; hardly less of a villain than his blue relative 

 when it comes to marauding other birds' nests and destroying 

 their young. With all his vices, however, intemperance cannot 

 be attributed to him, in spite of the name given him by the Adi- 

 rondack lumbermen and guides. "Whisky John" is a purely 

 innocent corruption of " Wis-ka-tjon," as the Indians call this 

 bird that haunts their camps and familiarly enters their wigwams. 

 The numerous popular names by which the Canada jays are 

 known are admirably accounted for by Mr. Hardy in a bulletin 

 issued by the Smithsonian Institution. 



"They will enter the tents, and often alight on the bow of a 

 canoe, where the paddle at every stroke comes within eighteen 

 inches of them. I know nothing which can be eaten that they 

 will not take, and I had one steal all my candles, pulling them 

 out endwise, one by one, from a piece of birch bark in which 

 they were rolled, and another peck a large hole in a keg of cas- 

 tile soap. A duck which 1 had picked and laid down for a few 

 minutes, had the entire breast eaten out by one or more of these 

 birds. I have seen one alight in the middle of my canoe and 

 peck away at the carcass of a beaver I had skinned. They often 

 spoil deer saddles by pecking into them near the kidneys. They 



79 



