200 
BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA . 
“ It robs every nest it can find, sucks the eggs like the crow, or tears 
to pieces and devours the young birds. A friend once wounded a 
Grouse (Bonasa umbellus), and marked the direction which it followed, 
but had not proceeded two hundred* yards in pursuit, when he heard 
something fluttering in the bushes, and found his bird belabored by two 
blue jays who were picking out its eyes. The same person once put a 
flying squirrel into the cage of one of these birds, merely to preserve it 
for one night; but on looking into the cage about eleven o’clock next 
day he found the mammal partly eaten. A Blue Jay at Charleston de¬ 
stroyed all the birds of an aviary. One after another had been killed, 
and the rats were supposed to have been the culprits, but no crevice 
could be seen large enough to admit one. Then the mice were accused, 
and war was waged against them, but still the birds continued to be 
kill ed ; first the smaller, then the larger, until at length the Key west 
Pigeons; when it was discovered that a Jay which had been raised in 
the aviary was the depredator. He was taken out and placed in a cage, 
with a quantity of corn, flour and several small birds which he had just 
killed. The birds he soon devoured, but the flour he would not conde¬ 
scend to eat, and refusing every other kind of food, soon died. In the 
north it is fond of ripe chestnuts, and in visiting the trees is sure to 
select the choicest. When these fail it attacks the beech nuts, acorns, 
peas, apples and green com. In Louisiana they are so abundant as to 
prove a nuisance to the farmers, picking the newly-planted com, the 
peas and the sweet potatoes, attacking every fruit tree, and even de¬ 
stroying the eggs of pigeons and domestic fowls. The planters are in 
the habit of occasionally soaking some corn in a solution of arsenic, and 
scattering the seeds over the ground, in consequence of which many 
Jays are found dead about the fields and gardens.” 
In reference to the food of this species, Mr. E. A. Samuels * writes as 
follows: “ Its food is more varied than that of almost any other bird 
that we have. In winter the berries of the cedar, barberry or black¬ 
thorn, with the few eggs or cocoons of insects that it is able to find, 
constitute its chief sustenance. In early spring the opening buds of 
shrubs, caterpillars and other insects, afford it a meagre diet. Later in 
the spring, and through the greater part of summer, the eggs and young 
of the smaller birds constitute its chief food, varied by a few insects and 
early berries. Later in the summer, and in early autumn, small fruits, 
grains, and a few insects afford it a bountiful provender; and later in 
the autumn when the frosts have burst open the burs of chestnuts and 
beechnuts and exposed the brown ripe fruit to view, these form a palat¬ 
able and acceptable food, and a large share of these delicious nuts fall 
to the portion of these busy and garrulous birds.” 
The food materials of Jays which I have examined are given in the 
following table: 
* Our Northern and Eastern Birds, p. 365. 
