THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. eG 
was bright and serene, and as one passed by the borders of a cedar 
swamp, the roadside waste was aglow with the profusely clustered 
scarlet berries of the Canadian holly (Prinos verticillata) These 
vied in colour with the dense-growing adjoining bushes oi red osier 
(cornus stolonifera), which also lend a charm to the shrubbery of 
swampy wilds at this season of the year when deciduous forests are 
bare of foliage. ‘Ihe brilliancy of colour of the Prinos berries and 
their great abundance would attach great interest to this shrub were 
the foliage evergreen and of a more permanent character; perhaps 
_by dipping the fruit-bearing twigs, ere the fall of the leaf, in some 
gummy or glue-like solution, the great beauty of this shrub for 
decorative purposes, in floral wreaths and on Christmas and New 
Year festivities, might be advantageously utilized. 
As we passed along by the swamp’s edge, bluejays from time to 
time vehemently screamed a note of alarm, or probably of warning, 
to their feathered confreres. ‘The jays seemed to be in family 
parties of fours or fives and interspersed at varying distances along 
the forest’s edge. In one place we saw them regaling on the fruit 
(or “ hep”) of the swamp rose (R. Carolina), which here grows in 
some abundance and has this year blossomed very freely. Cne of 
the bluejay’s cries bears a close resemblance to the so-called ‘“‘ mew- 
ing” of the hen hawk, so much so, that only a practised ear is able 
to detect the difference. But the jay’s varying modulations of voice 
are extensive, and are all indicative of the varying moods cr 
emotions of the vocalizer. The jays have a keen eye for fruits of a 
pronounced or gay colour, as we see that they quickly espy from a 
distance the bright red of a withered apple or two that sometimes 
remain on orchard trees all winter. ‘They, like most of the crow 
tribe, are nearly omnivorous, and when they alight on an apple tree 
in winter they search all along the branches, under the folds and 
fissures of bark for beetles and moths, and are as quick as wood- 
peckers to detect the hiding-place of any of the insect tribe, and a 
good beechnut year or a season productive of acorns is, to them, a 
period of opportunities. They also have a partiality for corn, and a 
few stalks of corn left exposed in a field will bring groups of them 
regularly to partake of the bounty in winter time. (A boy resident 
near here not long ago boasted in the hearing of the present writer 
that he had trapped twelve or thirteen jays in a steel trap set in his 
