50 BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 



CALIFORNIA JAY. 



(Aphelocoma californica.) 



The California jay (PL III) occupies the warm chaparral-covered 

 lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada and Coast ranges and adjacent val- 

 leys. He has the same general traits of character as the eastern jay, 

 is the same noisy, rollicking fellow as that bird, and in California 

 occupies a corresponding position in bird society. While for the most 

 part a frequenter of woods and chaparral, he is by no means shy of 

 visiting orchards and gardens, and will come even to the farm 

 buildings if anything there interests him. A nest of the chipping 

 sparrow (Spizella passerina arizonse), which was being watched for 

 notes on feeding, was robbed of its four nestlings early one morning 

 by a jay, although not more than 30 feet from the front door of a 

 house on the edge of the village. He is a persistent spy upon domes- 

 tic fowls and well knows the meaning of the cackle of a hen. A 

 woman whose home was at the mouth of a small ravine told the 

 writer that one of her hens had a nest under a bush a short distance 

 up the ravine from the cottage. A jay had found this out, and every 

 day when the hen went on her nest the j ay would perch on a near-by 

 tree. As soon as the cackle of the hen was heard, both woman and 

 bird rushed to get the egg, but many times the jay reached the nest 

 first and secured the prize. A man living in the thickly settled out- 

 skirts of a town said that jays came every morning and perched on 

 some large trees that overhung his barnyards, where the hens had 

 their nests, and that it was necessary for some member of the family 

 to be on the lookout and start at the first sound of the hen's voice or 

 a jay would get the egg. 



A still worse trait of the jay was described by a young man en- 

 gaged in raising poultry on a ranch far up a canyon near wooded 

 hills. When his white leghorn chicks were small, the jays would 

 attack and kill them by a few blows of the beak, and then peck 

 open the skull and eat the brains. In spite of all endeavors to 

 protect the chicks and to shoot the jays, his losses were serious. 



As a fruit-eater the jay has few equals. He has a pronounced 

 taste for cherries and prunes, and where orchards of these fruits are 

 near natural coverts, he will work unceasingly to carry off the fruit. 

 The writer remained in a cherry orchard in such a situation from 9 

 a. m. to 4 p. m. on several occasions during the cherry season, and 

 there was not an hour of that time that jays were not going away 

 with fruit and coming for more, in spite of the fact that every one 

 was shot that was unwary enough to give the collector a chance. 

 A small prune orchard on some bottomland, just where a small 

 ravine debouched from the wooded hills, was also watched. The 

 fruit was just ripening, and a continuous line of jays was seen pass- 



