THE



Hvtcultural flfoac$a3me,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



VOL. V. — NO. 54. All rights reserved. APRIL, 1899.



THE SIBERIAN JAY.


f Perisoreus infaustusJ.


By E. G. B. Meadk-Waldo.


I do not recollect to have seen any account of this bird in

confinement; nor to have ever seen one, with the exception of

three that I have had, one of which is still in perfect health and

condition in my aviary.


The Siberian Jay has a very wide range—from the North

of Norway in the West, throughout Northern Russia to Kam-

sckatka in the East. It is a bird of the spruce-forest, and its

sober colouring, of light and dark chestnut and ash colour,

harmonizes wonderfully with the red bark of the spruce fir, and

the various shades of grey of the lichens which festoon its

branches, in the vast forests that form its home. It has but

one near ally, the Canadian “Whiskey Jack,” (a bird so often

read of and so seldom seen) and it is almost, if not quite, as

confiding in its wild state as the Canadian Jay is reported to be.

It will not allow itself to be caught by the simple method of

. picking it up, or baiting the palm of one’s hand and suddenly

shutting it! But it will unconcernedly search the branches and

bark of the trees for insedts within a yard of you. In confine¬

ment it is not much tamer than in its wild state, but it will

quickly come and feed from the hand.


However, I have never had any but wild-caught birds.

My first specimen was procured in a curious manner. A friend

was shooting elk in Norway, and, wishing for some Jays for

skins, shot at this one, which, on receiving the shot, calmly “put

its head under its wing,” and went to sleep ; a man climbed up

and took it from its perch, and packed it up and put it away

until next morning, when it was found to be alive and well. It

was presented to me, and I had it for five years, when it died in

a fit,



