THE LABEADOK JAY. 39B 



it apart. They are persistent visitors to the tents of camping parties, and they 

 appear to have the faculty of discriminating between the touts of natives, who 

 (the Indians more especially than the Eskimo) wage war on every Whisky Jack 

 that comes in sight. 



"I was once encamped a few miles above the rapids, some 35 miles from 

 Fort Chimo, and thought to take a nap while the other members of the party 

 watched for caribou to cross the river. My attention was directed to a noise 

 within the tent, and I perceived a Whisky Jack perched on a pile of meat. I 

 carefully arose, and although the bird was within 2 yards of me it fearlessly 

 continued to peck at the fatty portions exposed. I then went to the meat and 

 cut off small portions and fed the bird from my hand, and in less than five 

 minutes it was resting on one hand and feeding from the other. I was surprised 

 at its familiarity, and continued to feed it until it could swallow no more. I 

 then cut off a large piece, placed it in the beak of the bird, and drove it outside, 

 when it flew to a neighboring tree, so heavily freighted that it could scarcely 

 sustain flight. 



"The Indians will not be tempted to procure the eggs of this bird under 

 any circumstances. They believe that if a person sees the eggs in the nest, and 

 especially if he counts them, some great misfortune will befall him. Repeated 

 inquiry among them elicited the statement that they had never seen the eggs 

 and knew nothing about the number laid. 



"Its general habits are similar to those of the other members of this family. 

 It is one of the greatest nuisances the trappers have to contend against, and one 

 of these assured me that he had taken fifteen of these birds from a line of less 

 than forty traps in a single day, and with good reason he called this bird a 

 'wolverine with feathers on.' 



"I have never found the Labrador Jays in flocks, although several may be 

 in the neighborhood, and on a single occasion only I saw five perched in one 

 tree. If a gun be fired it is certain to cause a Jay to investigate it, and I think 

 experience has taught him that food may be procured at such times." 



Since the above was written I have been fortunate enough to examine a set 

 of these eggs, taken in Labrador, in about latitude 57° 30' N. Mr. Jewell D. 

 Sornborger, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, while on a visit to that region in the 

 summer of 1892, obtained a set of five, and generously presented three of these 

 through the writer to the United States National Museum collection, and subse- 

 quently also deposited the remaining two. They resemble the eggs of Perisoreus 

 canadensis in color and in the general style of markings, but the latter are, as a 

 rule, coarser and larger, and the eggs are more pointed. Three eggs in this set 

 may be called pointed ovate in shape ; the other two approach an ovate pyriform. 

 They measure 30.22 by 21.08, 29.97 by 21.34, 29.97 by 21.34, 29.72 by 21.08, 

 and 29.21 by 21.59 millimetres, or 1.19 by 0.83, 1.18 by 84, 1.18 by 0.84, 1.17 

 by 0.83, and 1.15 by 0.85 inches. 



The type specimen, No. 26560 (PI. 3, Fig. 20), represents an average- 

 colored egg of this subspecies. 



