20 
FARMERS* BULLETIN 630. 
/ 
is taken in every month of the year, but in greater quantities (luring winter and 
early spring, when much of it is necessarily waste, and it forms about 18 per 
cent of the yearly food. Cultivated fruits of various kinds are eaten from 
June to the end of the year, and the To per cent taken in July apparently justifies 
complaints against the bird on this score. The favorite vegetable food of the 
blue jay is mast of various kinds, acorns predominating, but beechnuts, chest¬ 
nuts, chinquapins, and hazelnuts also are relished. This food is important in 
every month but July and August, the yearly average being over 43 per cent, 
and from October to March it constitutes about two-thirds of the diet. Occa¬ 
sionally harm is done by feeding also on cultivated nuts, as pecans. Wild fruits 
are eaten during the summer and fall and constitute about 7 per cent of the 
yearly sustenance. 
The blue jay probably renders its best services to man in destroying grass¬ 
hoppers late in the season and in feeding on hibernating insects and their eggs, 
as they do in the case of the tent caterpillar and brown-tail moth. Such forest 
insects as buprestid beetles and weevils of various kinds also fall as their prey. 
The blue jay’s vegetable food, with the exception of some cultivated fruit and 
corn in the fall, is largely neutral. The severest criticism against the species is 
the destruction of other birds and their eggs. Where we wish to attract the 
latter in large numbers about our dooryards, in our parks, and in game pre¬ 
serves, it will be well not to allow the jays to become too abundant. 
PACIFIC COAST JAYS. 
In California and adjacent States two species of jays are much in evidence 
under several more or less well-marked forms. 
The Steller jay 1 much resembles the eastern bird, but it is more shy and 
retiring and seldom visits the orchard or vicinity of the ranch buildings. 
Stomach examination shows that its food does not radically differ from that of 
the eastern blue jay. As is the case with that bird, a very considerable part 
of the food consists of mast, together with a little fruit and some insects. The 
insects are largely wasps, with some beetles and grasshoppers. The jay also 
eats some grain, which is probably waste or volunteer. No complaints, so far 
as known, are made against this bird. Until it shall become less wary it is not 
likely to trespass to a serious extent upon the farmer’s preserve. 
The California jay, 2 although of a different genus, more nearly resembles its 
eastern relative in food habits and actions. It freely visits the stockyards near 
ranch buildings, and orchards and gardens. As a fruit stealer it is notorious. 
One instance is recorded where seven jays were shot from a prune tree, one 
after the other, the dead bodies being left under the tree until all were killed. 
So eager were the birds to get the fruit that the report of the gun and the sight 
of their dead did not deter them from coming to the tree. In orchards in 
canyons or on hillsides adjacent to chaparral or other cover great mischief is 
done by this bird. In one such case an orchard was under observation at a time 
when the prune crop was ripening, and jays in a continuous stream were seen 
to come down a small ravine to the orchard, prey upon the fruit, and return. 
Fruit stealing, however, is only one of the sins of the California jay. That 
it robs hens’ nests is universal testimony. A case is reported of a lien having 
a nest under a clump of bushes; every day a jay came to a tree a few rods away, 
and when it heard the cackle of the hen announcing a new egg it flew at once 
to the nest. At the same time the mistress of the house hastened to the spot 
to secure the prize, but in most cases the jay won the race. This is only one of 
many similar cases recounted. The jays have learned just what the cackle of 
the hen means. Another case more serious is that related by a man engaged 
in raising white leghorn fowls on a ranch several miles up a canyon. He 
stated that when the chicks were very young the jays attacked and killed 
them by a few blows of the beak and then pecked open the skull and ate out 
the brains. In spite of all efforts to protect the chicks and kill the jays the 
losses in this way were serious. 
Examination of the stomachs of 326 California jays shows that 27 per cent 
of the contents for the year consists of animal matter and 73 per cent of vege¬ 
table. Although the great bulk of the animal food is made up of insects, the 
remains of eggshells and birds’ bones appear much too often. The insect food 
is fairly well distributed among the more common orders, but grasshoppers are 
1 Gyanocitta stelleri. 
z Aphelocoma californica. 
