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 confervse 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. 34—10 4 



