Birds of the Cambridge region. 235 



127. Cyanocitta cristata (Linn.). 

 - Blue Jay. 



Permanent resident, common at all seasons, but most numerously represented in autumn. 



NESTING DATES. 



April 28 — May 20. 



Since time immemorial the Blue Jays of the Cambridge Region have been 

 mercilessly persecuted by boys just learning to shoot, as well as by vandal gun- 

 ners of maturer years. Nevertheless the birds do not appear to have diminished 

 sensibly in numbers, at least during the period covered by my personal recollec- 

 tion. Within recent times, however, they have nearly or quite deserted several 

 of their former haunts in the immediate neighborhood of Cambridge. Most fav- 

 ored of these in the earlier days was the region lying to the westward of Mount 

 Auburn where beautiful, secluded woods of oak and pine, groves of old Virginia 

 junipers, extensive orchards of large apple trees, and sheltered nooks and hollows 

 abounding in seed-bearing weeds and berry-laden shrubs, combined to form a per- 

 fect paradise for birds of various kinds. The noisy, brilliant-plumaged Jays were 

 found here at all seasons. In autumn and winter, when they were most abundant 

 and conspicuous, it was by no means unusual to meet with them in flocks con- 

 taining as many as a dozen or fifteen birds each. Their range extended from the 

 Watertown Arsenal to about where the Cambridge Hospital now stands, and in- 

 cluded Mount Auburn, the old Winchester place on the banks of Charles River, 

 the Cambridge Cemetery, the adjoining Coolidge farm, Elmwood, and Gray's 

 Woods. They also appeared regularly, if somewhat sparingly and infrequently, 

 in most of the cultivated grounds along Brattle Street. I cannot recall ever 

 seeing them to the southward of Harvard Square, but they used to frequent 

 Norton's Woods and, I believe, are occasionally found there still. I have known 

 them to breed in the Norway spruces of Hubbard Park, and in 1878 a pair 

 hatched and reared their .brood within our own grounds, building their nest near 

 the top of a tall Unden which stands close to the house. In the neighboring 

 Nichols estate, as I learn from Mr. Charles R. Lamb, several young, barely large 

 enough to fly, were observed as lately as the summer of 1900. 



A few Blue Jays continue to reappear in autumn and vdnter throughout 

 most of the densely populated region lying between the Botanic Garden and Mount 

 Auburn, and they are not infrequent visitors to our garden. At the present 



