The Blue Jay 
has made it his specialty to study the food of our birds in relation to 
agriculture, declares that these alleged nest-robbing propensities are not so 
general as has been supposed. 
“If if were true,” he remarks, “that eggs and young of smaller birds 
constitute the chief food of the Blue Jay during the breeding season, the 
small birds of any section where jays are fairly abundant would be in 
danger of extermination. Insects are eaten in every month in the year. 
The great bulk consists of beetles, grasshoppers and caterpillars. . . . 
Three-fourths of the Blue Jay’s food consists of vegetable matter, 42 per 
cent, of which consists of ‘mast/ under which are grouped large seeds of 
trees and shrubs, such as acorns, chestnuts, beechnuts, 
Food chinquapins, and some others. Blue Jays prefer mast 
to corn, or indeed any other vegetable food, for they 
eat the greatest amount at a time when fruit, grain and other things are 
most abundant/’ 
Mr. Beal examined the contents of 292 stomachs, collected in every 
month in the year from twenty-two States and from Canada, and found 
remains of birds, or of their eggs, in only three. 
How shall we reconcile these contradictions? Is it simply an illus- 
tration of living down a bad reputation, even when innocently acquired? 
Yes, and no. Probably the truth is that the Blue Jay does not often rob 
nests, or kill small birds, as food for himself, but that he does seize them 
as food for his nestlings. On that theory the observers of such depreda- 
tions will be sustained, and the absence of evidence in stomachs, as shown 
by Beal, will be accounted for. This, however, is an extenuation rather 
than an excuse. 
It is true that individual Blue Jays are to be seen everywhere during 
the winter, even in Canada ; but it is also true that, as a species, the bird 
is migratory in an irregular sort of way. In autumn flocks wander about 
the country seeking favorable feeding-grounds ; but 
Migration there is also a general movement toward the south, 
where the winter is spent along the coast of the Gulf 
of Mexico, and in Florida and Georgia. 
In the winter these birds often have a hard time. They keep their 
native caution, however, and the good-natured feeder of winter birds, who 
easily attracts Snow-birds, Chickadees and the small woodpeckers to his 
door-yard luncheon, is not easily able to persuade the proud and wary 
Blue Jay to partake of this out-door relief ; yet if he will persist in offering 
corn, cracked nuts and the like, his reward will be great, for none of the 
winter-birds is more beautiful and interesting a winter visitor than this. 
Classification and Distribution 
The Blue Jay belongs to the Order Passeres, the Family Corvida, and the 
Subfamily Garrulince. The scientific name is Cyanocitta cristata cristata. The range 
is eastern North America, breeding from central Alberta, southern Keewatin, 
Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland south to the Gulf States, 
except Florida, and west to western Nebraska, eastern Colorado and central Texas. 
The Florida Blue Jay (C. c. dorincola ) is a subspecies confined to Florida. 
This and other Educational Leaflets are for sale, at 5 cents each, by the National Association of 
Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City. Lists given on request. 
