872 BIRDS 



CANADA JAY 



The Canada Jay, known as the Moose Bird, Whisky 

 Jack, Camp Robber, Grease Bird or Venison Heron, is 

 decidedly a bird of the north or Alpine region; therefore, 

 it is found in the United States only in the northern portion 

 of the northern states, except perhaps in the mountainous 

 regions of Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho. 



Blanchan writes: "The Canada jay looks like an exag- 

 gerated 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 

 Adirondack 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 



