A CHAPTER IN THE LIFE OF THE CANADA JAY. 
'BY OSCAR BIRD WARREN. 
On the 2 2 d of February of this year (1898), while returning 
from a walk to a lumber camp near Mahoning, Mich., I dis- 
covered a pair of Canada Jays {Perisoreus canadensis) building a 
nest. 
Though on the lookout for the nest of the 1 Meat Hawk’ ever 
since its acquaintance was first formed, never before had it by 
any sign or action revealed its nesting place to me. Many a 
long walk through almost impenetrable spruce swamps, flounder- 
ing in several feet of soft snow too light for snowshoeing, had 
been unrewarded. These birds had often been abundant around 
the lumber camps and in company with the Blue Jay, w'ere com- 
mon about the houses during the fall and winter months; but 
their breeding habits remained a secret. Therefore this dis- 
covery coming so unexpectedly after many fruitless searches was 
all the more joyfully received. 
1 was walking down the Wright-Davis railroad through a spruce 
swamp at the time, and had come to a place known as the ‘ Sink,’ 
where a few years ago a large stretch of roadbed had suddenly 
disappeared in the seemingly bottomless ’ Muskey swamp, and 
where the track is now laid on a mass of pine and tamarac logs, 
the only means of support ; when my attention was attracted by 
a flock of noisy Chickadees chasing through the trees. Looking 
up, what should I see but a pair of Canada Jays pulling beard 
moss and spider nests from some dead trees and making short 
trips to a neighboring live spruce about 150 feet from the rail- 
road track, where they were evidently building a nest. 
Taking a short circuit I reached a position where I could 
watch their movements better without attracting attention. 
They brought small sticks, beard moss, spider nests and strips of 
bark from the trees and sphagnum moss from about the base of 
the trees where not covered with snow, and deposited all of this 
in a bunch of branches at the end of a limb, — a peculiar reversed 
umbrella-shaped formation commonly seen in the small spruce 
trees, probably caused by some diseased condition of growth. 
The female arranged the material, pressing it into the proper 
shape and weaving it about the small twigs to form a safe sup- 
port. Though the birds obtained the material so near, where it 
was abundant, yet they carefully picked up any which accidentally 
fell from the nest, and there were no signs of sticks or any frag- 
ments of nesting material at any time during the construction of 
the nest. 
My first observation was short, owing to the cold weather. A 
