File:Report on the birds of Pennsylvania - with special reference to the food habits, based on over four thousand stomach examinations (1890) (20480208578).jpg

Title: Report on the birds of Pennsylvania : with special reference to the food habits, based on over four thousand stomach examinations
Identifier: commercialpoultr11 (find matches)
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Warren, Benjamin Harry, 1858-
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Harrisburg : E. K. Meyers, State Printer
Contributing Library: Penn State University
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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f Plate 49. '200 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. " It robs every nest it can find, sueks the egg-s like tli(^ crow, or tears to pieces and devours the young- birds. A friend onc() wounded a Grouse (Bonasa umheJlus), 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 cag-e of one of these birds, merely to preserve it for one nig-ht; but on looking: into the cag-e 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 larg;e enough to admit one. Then the mice were accused, and war was wagred ag-ainst them, but still the birds continued to l)e killed; first the smaller, then the larg-er, until at leng-th 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 cag-e, with a quantity of com. Hour 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 ^dsiting 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 corn, 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, barbeny 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, aftbrd 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. 8(53. c> • 4
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American Robin. i. M≤ 2. Female and young. <P COLOR PLATE

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