THE ALASKAN JAY. 



391 



"Two nests were brought me from the mouth of the Tanana River by Mr. 

 FrauQois Mercier, who obtamed them April 1, 1880, after considerable persuasion 

 and an offer of a large reward in flour to the natives during a time of scarcity. 

 By these means he succeeded in getting a native to search for the nests of this 

 bird. The young fellow returned in a few hours with two nests, each containing 

 half-grown young. Walking into the house, he told the trader to take the nests 

 and birds at once, for he was sure some evil would result from his act and takino- 

 his flour lie hurried away before the birds and nests were examined. All the old 

 crones and men of the vicinity prophesied that the weather would turn cold and 

 that a very late spring would ensue as a result of this robbery. As chance 

 would have it, the prophecies of the old soothsayers came true in a remarkable 

 degree, and the spring was the coldest and most backward, by nearly a month 

 of any year since the Americans have had possession of the country. In the 

 following spring (of 1881) I asked the same trader to try and get eo-o-g of this 

 bird by sending out natives earlier in the season. He complied, and offered still 

 greater rewards than on the first occasion, but the natives could not be bribed 

 to risk the visitation of the birds' anger, and the old i^eople positively forbade 

 any of the younger ones to have anything to do with the matter; therefore 

 the attempt was abandoned. One point was gained, however, and that was the 

 information how the natives found the nests so readily. They told the trader 

 that these nests could always be easily found by examining the s)iow at the base 

 of each bushy-topped spruce, and whenever a number of small dry twigs were 

 found lying near together upon the snow under a tree there wa,s a great i)roba- 

 bility of a Jay's nest being snugly esconced in the thick branches overhead. 



"The two nests, now before me, are built of a inatted mass of a cotton-like 

 down of some plant; about the upper edge and in the cavity are pieces of rabbit 

 fur, a few Horned Owl feathers, and fine strips of bark. The entire nest rests 

 upon a horizontal branch nearly 2 inches in diameter, and a scanty number of 

 small dead spruce twigs, 6 to 8 inches long, loosely woven into the structure 

 give it consistency and prevent it from being easily damaged. This nest is 4i 

 inches high by 6 broad, with a cavity 2| inches deep by 3f inches across the 

 top. The other nest was placed in the fork of a small branch less than half an 

 inch in diameter, and rests on a rough platform of slender spruce twio-g. The 

 main part of the nest is made of the same cottony substance as is the first and 

 is also interwoven with twigs. Above this is a layer of fine, fibrous black moss 

 such as occurs on spruce trees. The inside of the cavity is slightly lined with 

 fine grass. This nest measures 4 inches high by 6 inches broad, and the cavity 

 2 inches deep by 2|- inches across the top."^ 



Mr. W. H. Dall, of the United States Coast Survey, also took a nest of this 

 Jay near Nulato, with fom- half-grown young, on April 20, showing that these 

 birds usually nest in March, notwithstanding the intense cold which occurs occa- 

 sionally at this time of the year. 



The eggs of this subspecies, as far as I am aware, still remain unknown, 

 but they are not likely to differ much from those of the Canada Jay. 



' Report upon Natural History Collections made in Alaska, No. Ill, 1887, p. 165. 



