1889. 
Maine. 
f4‘) 
(lAAAb'VUAj 
CIaa**. e*. dLi**A4-Arf 
Lake Umbagog, 
I have never seen these Jays cross the Lake as the Blue Jays 
are continually doing, nor indeed have I ever observed them take 
a continual flight of more than two or three hundred yards. Their 
wings seem to be used more as parachutes than as means of propul¬ 
sion, for theyrarely flap themexeept when risin? from the ground 
into a tree. Their ordinary method of moving through the woods 
is by sailing from one tree to the next, alighting low down, hop¬ 
ping or flitting from branch to branch until they get to a suf¬ 
ficient /ba ght to make another scaling flight. nevertheless, they 
move with such rapidity that it is difficult to overtake them with¬ 
out running, for t ey rarely remain more th n a few seconds in 
one tree before starting for the ne xt. There is something pecul¬ 
iar about the appearance of the bird when t us sailing, something 
which I have never been quite able to analyze. Perhaps itm is 
merely the shape of the wings, which are very broad, and appear 
to be strongly concave with the tips bent sharply upward. The 
bird at first sight, wile thus scaling is apt to be taken 
for a nawk, but its motion is much slower. On the ground, it moves 
by short hops,so elastic that one might emagine it to be jumpingg 
on a rubber surface. 
It has a variety of notes, most of them shrill and penetrat¬ 
ing, the commonest 1loud, hawk-1ike whistle, very like that oi 
the Red Hawk, but clearly not,as i - the case of one of 
the Blue Jays calls, an imitation of it. Another common cry is 
a succession of short, rather mellow v/hist les, eight or ten in 
number all given in the same keyV siteMKfrequent1y mm utters 
a loud v ela, eta , da, da, cla, cl a, cla , 11 not unlike the cry of the 
Sparrow Hawk. It also scolds very much like a Baltimore Oriole* 
Twice I heard one scream so nearly like a Riltue'Jay that I should 
probably have been deceived had not the bird been very ne r and 
in full sight of me. In addition to these notes, it also hasR.low, 
tender, cooing noise which I have never hdeard except when two 
birds are near together, evidently talking to one another. 
The captives above-mentioned on being taken to Cambridgeand 
put out of doors for several days in a large cage became consider¬ 
ably shker tha n t-to y w - ors when first ’ captured. In fact, at the 
day of writing, November 9th. , they w<t£6e no longer take food from 
