2IO Bird - Lore was a large migration of small birds during the night, as the bushes were full of Tow- hees, Cuckoos and Kingbirds, and the Red- breasted Nuthatches were more numerous than the day before. They outnumbered the sum total of all the other small migrants. On the 23d, large numbers of them still were in evidence, but not so many as on the 22d, and on the 24th only a few were seen. The flight covered three days — 21st to 23d — while on the 24th the stragglers brought up the rear, a lone laggard being seen on the 25th. At the height of the mi- gration, Nuthatches were seen everywhere, — on the buildings, on trees, bushes, and weeds and even on the ground. They were remarkably tame and would permit a near approach ; if the observer were seated they would come within a few feet of him. They crept over the roofs and sides of the houses, ■examining the crevices between the shingles; Jhey searched under the cornices on the piazzas and in fact looked into every nook and corner that might be the hiding-place <of insects. Every tree had its Nuthatch occupant, while many of them evidently found food even on the bushes and larger weeds. On a large abandoned fish factory at least fifty of these birds were seen at one time. The proprietor of one of the hotels told me that live of the birds were in his building catch- ing flies, they having come in through the open doors and windows. They are expert flycatchers in the open, as many of them were seen to dart after flying insects after the manner of the true Flycatchers. It would ■be exceedingly interesting to know how ilarge a territory this migration covered and to get some records of it from stations north and south of this point of observation, in order to see the rate at which the birds trav- eled — William Dutcher, New York City. The Blue lay as a Destroyer of Eggs and Young Birds For more than ten years the Blue Jays ftiave been very abundant about our house, and near our summer home. For several ■winters I have had a window-board to which they have come regularly and very freely for food, and no English Sparrow has come near my windows while the board was in place, and the Jays were constant vis- itors. In the winter of 1904-5 I did not put up the window-board, the Jays sought food elsewhere, and English Sparrows built nests in the vines on the house, behind the rain- pipes and on copings. In the spring a brood of Sparrows hatched in a nest near my window, and one day I was startled by a great screaming and squawking near this nest. I found a Jay in the act of carrying off one of the young Sparrows, while all the old birds in the neighborhood were protesting clamorously. On each of five days following this, a Jay seized a young Sparrow from this nest, sometimes flying to a distance with it, but, more than once, devoured the Sparrow on a branch of the nearest tree. These Sparrows were not feathered, but I have seen the Jays capture and eat Sparrows with tails over an inch long and fully feathered. In the summer of 1905, each brood which the Sparrows undertook to rear on the house, near my window, was eaten by the Jays. In Brandon, Vt., I have seen a Jay try to steal the eggs of a Chipping Sparrow and fail only because the clamor of all the small birds near by called me to the rescue. Even then I had to stone the Jay in order to make it fly away. It did get one of the young, at least, soon alter they were hatched. We have many, far too many, English Sparrows in Brookline; but I am sure that the Jays keep the number from increasing even more rapidly, and I count this to their credit. Their destruction of other birds is a very great disadvantage, and a character- istic which must count against their value. My observation in three places not near each other, convinces me that Jays will eat eggs and young birds whenever they can get them, and that they will bear much opposition in order to get them. — Caroline Gray Soule, Brookline, Mass. [Bird-Lore would welcome observations on the feeding habits of Blue Jays from ornithologists living in the Mississippi Valley where the abundance and familiarity of the bird give unusual opportunity for study. — Ed ]
