Animals that store food items in scattered sites must decide how to di
stribute their caches in space. Our theoretical approach is based on t
he assumption that such animals disperse their caches in a manner that
maximizes the long-term rate of storage of recoverable (surviving) fo
od items in the habitat. We investigate the cache-spacing behavior of
theoretical scatter hoarders that encounter food sources differing in
the energetic content of the items they contain. We then describe a fi
eld experiment in which gray jays (Perisoreus canadensis) were present
ed with both small- and large-item food sources. The jays compensated
for source type by spacing larger-item caches more widely, a compensat
ion that would tend to yield a high rate of storage of recoverable foo
d energy over the long term and throughout the territory. Previous mod
els do not adequately account for the observed patterns of cache dispe
rsion.