CROWS, MAGPIES, AND JAYS 



63 



'whiskey jack 



Photograph by George Shiras, 3d 



ni;vi:r fails to heed the mess caee 



The Canada jay has an appetite so omnivorous that he has been known to consume large 

 quantities of soap. His nickname may have come from the Indian word "wiskedjack," or from 

 another Indian term, "wiss-ka-chon," corrupted by white men to "Whiskey John" and then to 

 "Whiskey Jack" (see page 76). 



central Florida. Jays were not very com- 

 mon there at that time. The settlers 

 planted water oaks for shade, and as these 

 and other deciduous trees developed, the 

 character of the bird life began to change. 

 Crested flycatchers, chuck-will's-widows, 

 cardinals, and wrens, hitherto but little 

 known in that immediate neighborhood, 

 began to come about the houses. Inland 

 towns to-da}' have bountiful acorn crops, 

 and blue javs are abundant. 



Blue ja3's are very engaging birds. You 

 may suspect them of taking the eggs from 

 the robin or yellow warbler's nest which 

 )'ou have been watching: you may object 

 to their cries and shouts, but the blue jay is 

 the dashing, handsome rake of the village. 



In a vast evergreen forest in the moun- 

 tains of Montana I was awakened one 

 morning by a sound that was entirely new 

 to me. A guttural, grating, rattling note, 

 difficult to describe, yet easy to remember, 

 was issuing from some point near by. 

 Cautiously raising the flap of my sleeping 

 bag, I discovered the author of the sounds. 

 On a low limb of a tree sat a stocky, 



gray bird at least a foot in length. His 

 wings were glossy black with a dash of 

 white. He was peering at his companion 

 standing on the ground by the log where 

 we had eaten our supper the evening be- 

 fore. This was my first acquaintance with 

 the "big camp robber," or Clark's crow, 

 and the meeting was just as I would have 

 had it — a perfectly natural environment 

 and a visit staged in a manner wholly 

 characteristic of this little-known bird. 



High up on the slopes of Pikes Peak, a 

 Clark's nutcracker dashed from a stunted 

 conifer in pursuit of another. Straight 

 out from the mountain they flew. Four 

 hundred yards or more away, they turned 

 to the misty valley far beneath and plunged 

 downward, volplaning, banking, flying 

 with flapping wings, but always descend- 

 ing until, perhaps 2,000 feet below, they 

 were lost to my view. Diving flights from 

 such dizzy heights meant nothing to them. 

 In the wilderness the Clark's nutcracker is 

 as adventurous as was the great explorer 

 of the Northwest who first discovered it 

 to science and whose name it bears. 



