54 BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 
126,000. This is probably a low estimate. If 18 percent of this 
number, or 22,680 jays, each robs a nest of eggs or young daily for a 
period of sixty days from the middle of May to the middle of July, the 
total number of nests destroyed in California by this one species every 
year is 1,360,800. These figures are somewhat startling, representing 
as they do an enormous number of useful birds, and it is to be hoped 
they exaggerate the damage. For the present, however, they must 
stand for what they are worth. More data are necessary in order to 
determine fully the accuracy of the figures. Little weight attaches 
to the destruction of the eggs of domestic fowls by this jay, since in 
most cases it is easily preventable. 
Vegetable food.—Aside from a few miscellaneous items, that alto- 
gether amount to less than 1 percent, the jay’s vegetable food may be 
classed under three heads: Grain, fruit, and mast. Owing to the 
economic importance of this food the full tabulation is given below: 
Month. | Grain. | Fruit. fanny Month. | Grain. | Fruit. | eens 
January..... 9. 40 9. 00 74.90 || August.....-. 18.73 | 48.53 0. 21 
February....| 6.43 |........ 69.14 || September....| 24.26 | 19.89) 31.65 
paete Bh 27.00 || October. ..... 20! |naseiedeal’ BBUOr 
0: aca ec eee 24.75 || November... .|....-... 11.14] 66.29 
61. 41 . 68 |} December. ...}.....-.- 17.50 | 73.00 
51. 29 2. 22 
44.94 .19 Average.| 11.73 | 22.05 | 38.22 
It will be seen that March holds the highest record for grain. This 
was probably picked up from fields newly sown. After that, not 
much is eaten until June, when the harvest begins. From that time 
on, grain is an important article of diet, and isobtained by gleaning in 
the harvested fields. It makes a sudden drop at the end of Septem- 
ber, for at that time the acorn crop comes in. Grain was found in 
95 stomachs, of which 56 contained oats; 34, corn; 2, wheat; 2, 
barley; and 1, grain not further identified. Many of the oats were 
of the wild variety. 
Fruit was found in 270 stomachs. Of these, cherries were identi- 
fied in 37, prunes in 25, apples in 5, grapes in 2, pears in 2, peaches 
in 1, gooseberries in 2, figs in 1, blackberries or raspberries in 71, 
elderberries in 42, manzanita in 4, cascara in 1, mistletoe in 1, and 
fruit pulp not’further identified in 76. It will be noted that most 
of the fruit was eaten in the five months from May to September, 
inclusive. All found in November, December, and January was 
fruit pulp without seeds, evidently old fruit left on the trees. All 
the small fruits, as raspberries and elderberries, were taken during 
the summer months. The raspberries may have been either wild 
or cultivated, and were probably both; but in any case it is safe to 
say that half of the fruit eaten was of wild varieties and of no eco- 
nomic value. 
