.. JAY FAMILY. 49 
timber. For the present, then, or until it becomes more domestic, 
the damage to cultivated fruit is likely to be small. 
Grain amounts to 5 percent, and was found in 15 stomachs, dis- 
tributed as follows: Wheat in 7, oats in 9, and barley in 1. Much of 
the wheat was damaged, and, in fact, owing to the times of year, it 
could not have been otherwise. The greatest amount of grain was 
taken in June, 24 percent, and was probably picked up in the harvest 
field. Many of the oats, perhaps all, were of the wild variety. The 
chief food of this jay, however, is acorns, though occasionally it eats 
other nuts or large seeds. Mast amounts to 42.5 percent of the yearly 
diet, and was found in 38 stomachs. In some of them it reached 99 
percent of the contents. In October and November it amounted to 
76 percent, in December to 90, and in January to 99 percent. Even 
in June, when other food was abundant, it was eaten to the extent 
of nearly 10 percent, though none was found in the stomachs taken 
in May or July. Very likely a considerable part of this was stolen 
from the stores of the California woodpecker, for it is hardly probable 
that the jays find acorns under the trees so late as June and so early 
as August. It is true the jays themselves store up nuts to some 
extent, but hardly on the scale indicated by the contents of their 
stomachs when the acorn harvest is long past. Seeds, galls, and 
miscellaneous matter make up the remainder of the vegetable food, 
about 2.5 percent. In two stomachs taken near the ocean were tan- 
gles of conferve and other seaweeds. 
SUMMARY. 
From the foregoing analysis it will be seen that the food of the 
Steller jay is of minor importance from an economic point of view. 
In destroying beetles and Hymenoptera it performs some service, 
but it destroys only a few. Of the order of Hemiptera, which con- 
tains most of the worst pests of the orchardist and farmer, it eats 
scarcely any. The Orthoptera, which are almost all harmful insects, 
are eaten only sparingly, and the same applies to the rest of the 
insect food. The destruction of birds’ eggs is the worst count against 
the jay. But none were found, except in June, until September, when 
it was too late in the season for fresh eggs to be obtainable. In June 
17 birds were taken, and 6 of them, or 35 percent of the whole, appar- 
ently had robbed birds’ nests. Now, it is evident that if 35 percent 
of all the Steller jays in California each rob one bird’s nest every day 
during the month of June the aggregate loss is very great. 
So far as its vegetable food is concerned, this bird does little dam- 
age. It is too shy to visit the more cultivated districts, and probably 
will never take enough fruit or grain to become of economic impor- 
tance. The other vegetable food it consumes is entirely neutral from 
the economic standpoint. 
38301—Bull. 3410-4 
