THE OSPREY. 



An Illustrated Ivlagazine of Popular Ornithology. 



pablished ivionthiy. 



Volume I. (New Series). JANUARY, 1902. Ndmbee 1. 



THE CALIFORNIA JAY {APIIKLOCOMA CALIFORNWA): SOME 

 OF ITS HABITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. 



By D. A. Cohen, Alameda, Cal. 



Most of my observations on this species were made at Alameda, California, 

 which is a sandy peninsula roughlj' four miles long b}' a mile wide, bounded 

 on the north by level, dark, loamy or adobe fields, gradually merging into 

 the foothills or Coast Range mountains, and on the remaining three sides by San 

 Francisco Bay, its marshes and tributary sloughs. The peninsula, or city 

 limits, was primevally a forest of stalwart and picturesque live oaks with more 

 or less deviating upper branches toward the rising sun, due to the prevailing 

 winds from the Pacific Ocean. Close to the bay shores the oaks are notice- 

 ably scrubby and stunted and possess a greater incline toward the east, the 

 upper branches of some running only in that direction, in such strained fashion 

 that the crowns are almost flat. Cypress, pine and Australian blue gum, 

 [Eucalyptus), have been planted in profusion, but the California Jay is still 

 faithful to the oak of its ancestors, rarely deviating from this custom in nest- 

 ing. Oaks of younger decades were well intermingled with the deeper rooted, 

 gnarled and lichen-covered trees of more ancient years, while less high, the 

 chaparal brush and wild lupin, often small trees in themselves, furnished 

 many a retreat for deer, rabbits and quail. Poison-oak, somewhat similar to 

 your eastern poison-ivy, grew in patches by itself or found a runway upwards 

 against the rough oak bark, and often a trellis among the upper branches, 

 frequently assuming vigorous proportions. Masses of wild blackberryvines 

 flourished in large patches under and above the oaks, meshing the brush or 

 sending their multitude of runners up the low branches to goodly heights. 

 Wild flowers of various and elegant hues carpeted the natural clearings, 

 from February, when the sun coaxed the more hardy varieties into bloom by 

 his genial rays, until May, when they began to fade and wither away, species 

 by species, as the summer or dry season set in. In those days the game and 



