272 
CROWS, JAYS, MAGPIES, ETC. 
barred with black; throat gray or purplish white ; middle of breast and 
sides grayish or brownish, belly 
white ; white on outer tail feath¬ 
er an inch or more deep. Young: 
similar, but colors duller. Length: 
11.00-12.50, wing 5.00-5.70, tail 
5.05-5.70, exposed culmen .93- 
1.06. 
Distribution. — Breeds in east¬ 
ern North America from about 
latitude 52° south to Florida, and 
from the Atlantic west to eastern 
parts of Nebraska, Kansas, and 
northern Texas. 
Nest. — Usually in trees, often 
in orchards about houses, made 
largely of dried twigs and rootlets. Eggs: 3 to 6, pale olive, greenish, or 
buffy, sparsely spotted with brown. 
Food. — Largely mast; also corn, grain, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. 
Observers in the western parts of Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas 
may be fortunate enough to know the spirited eastern blue jay. In 
voice and general habits he resembles his western relatives, though 
perhaps more awake to the advantages to be had from human 
neighborhood when snow covers the acorns and nuts on which he 
feeds. 
478. Cyanocitta stelleri ( Gmel.). Steller Jay. 
Adults. — Fore parts of body dull blackish , changing to pale blue on 
lower back and belly; wings and tail purplish blue, barred with black. 
Young : similar, but duller ; wing bars faint or wanting. Length : 12-13, 
wing 5.55-6.20, tail 5.30-6.35, bill .96-1.18. 
Distribution. — Resident in Transition and Canadian zones from Cook 
Inlet south along coast to Monterey, California, and east to the Cascades. 
Nest. — 25 to 50 feet from the ground, usually in firs, but sometimes 
other trees, vines, and bushes, made of twigs, moss, and dry grass, ce¬ 
mented with mud and lined with fine roots. Eggs: 3 to 5, pale bluish 
green, spotted or blotched over whole surface with brown and lavender, 
thickest about the larger end. 
Food. — In winter largely pine seeds, though almost anything is eaten. 
There are many handsome blue-jays, but stelleri in its numerous 
forms, with its blue body and high crest, is one of the lords of its 
race, fittingly associated with the noblest forests of the west. 
The Steller jay ( stelleri ) may be found at Cloud Cap Inn on Mt. 
Hood, feeding with the Clark crows and Oregon jays, and gives a 
touch of color to the solemn redwood forests of California as well 
as the dark, jungle-like woods of the Puget Sound country. The 
blue-fronted {stelleri frontalis) enlivens the forests of the Sierra, 
while the long-crested {stelleri diademata) lives in the southern 
Rocky Mountains, wandering about in the mountain ranges of New 
Mexico and the pine forests of Arizona. At Cloudcroft, New Mexico, 
From Biological Survey, U. S. Dept, of 
Agriculture. 
Fig. 345. Blue Jay. 
