The California Jays 



succeeding year. We hazard that this high variability in the egg attests 

 a certain virility, or adaptability, in the parent stock. Various incipient 

 strains are held in leash by cross breeding, so that the stock as a whole 

 has been "Americanized." 



The significance of these interweaving strands of heredity is, however, 

 strongly hinted at in the glaring exception which occurs on Santa Cruz 

 Island. The eggs of the Santa Cruz Island Jay, Aphelocoma insularis 

 (as elsewhere recited), are almost absolutely uniform in coloration. 

 Presumably a single pair of birds was accidentally stranded on that 

 island, and their progeny exhibit a single type of egg. Whether the 

 other characters which the Island Jay displays were ontologically con- 

 comitant with, or implicit in a certain type of egg, or whether they are, 

 rather, the product of recent development, we are unable to say; but the 

 former is at least a tenable hypothesis. 



The nests of the California Jay are also highly variable. Not only 

 do they vary with locality and available material, but their differences 

 express the individuality of the builders. Some are very compact, rigid 

 structures. Others are flimsy and ill-kempt summer houses. In general, 

 one may say, however, that upon a careless mass of crisscrossed sticks, a 

 deep substantial cup of rootlets, or horsehair, or mingled roots and hair, is 

 imposed. Aphelocoma never uses a mud cup for mid structure, as Cyanocitta 

 invariably does. The lining varies delightfully, but is largely dependent, 

 it is only fair to say, upon the breed of horses or cattle affected on the 

 nearest ranch. So we have nests with white, black, bay, and sorrel 

 linings, not to mention dapple gray and pinto. One fastidious bird of 

 my acquaintance, after she had constructed a dubious lining of mottled 

 material, discovered a coal black steed overtaken by mortality. New 

 furnishings were ordered forthwith. The old lining was pitched out 

 bodily, and the coal black substitute installed immediately, to the bird's 

 vast satisfaction — and mine. 



Taking the country over, nests built in oak trees probably outnumber 

 all others combined, yet the component members of the chaparral, ceano- 

 thus, chamissal, and the rest, must do duty in turn, and all species of the 

 riparian sylva as well. The thick-set clumps of mistletoe are very 

 hospitable to this bird, and since this occurs on oaks, cottonwoods, and, 

 occasionally, digger pines, it follows that jayheim is found there also. 

 As to height, that depends upon persecution. The birds will nest prefer- 

 ably at moderate heights, — three to ten feet up, in gooseberry, elder, 

 or willow; but I have taken them at forty feet in oak trees, where the 

 birds had found it necessary to secure the maximum of local cover. 



The sitting bird usually flushes in silence, and with the least possible 

 demonstration. If the visitor has not satisfied his curiosity or his cupid- 



56 



