14 BLUE JAY.
sea shore to the mountainous districts, it seems more abundant in the
latter. The nest is composed of twigs and other coarse materials, lined
with fibrous roots. The eggs are four or five, of a dull olive colour,
spotted with brown.
The Blue J ay is truly omnivorous, feeding indiscriminately on all sorts
of flesh, seeds, and insects. He is more tyrannical than brave, and, like
most boasters, domineers over the feeble, dreads the strong, and flies even
from his equals. In many cases in fact, he is a downright coward. The
Cardinal Grosbeak will challenge him, and beat him off the ground. The
Red Thrush, the Mocking Bird, and many others, although inferior in
strength, never allow him to approach their nest with impunity ; and the
Jay, to be even with them, creeps silently to it in their absence, and devours
their eggs and young whenever he finds an opportunity. I have seen one
go its round from one nest to another every day, and suck the newly laid
eggs of the different birds in the neighbourhood, with as much regularity
and composure as a physician would call on his patients. I have also
witnessed the sad disappointment it experienced, when, on returning to
its own home, it found its mate in the jaws of a snake, the nest upset, and
the eggs all gone. I have thought more than once on such occasions
that, like all great culprits, when brought to a sense of their enormities,
it evinced a strong feeling of remorse. While at Charleston, in November
1833, Dr WILSON of that city told me that on opening a division of
his aviary, a Mocking Bird that he had kept for three years, flew at another
and killed it, after which it destroyed several Blue Jays, which he had
been keeping for me some months in an adjoining compartment.
The Blue Jay seeks for its food with great diligence at all times, but
more especially during the period of its migration. At such a time, whereever
there are chinquapins, wild chestnuts, acorns, or grapes, flocks will be
seen to alight on the topmost branches of these trees, disperse, and engage
with great vigour in detaching the fruit. Those that fall are picked up
from the ground, and carried into a chink in the bark, the splinters of a
fence rail, or firmly held under foot on a branch, and hammered with the
bill until the kernel be procured.
As if for the purpose of gleaning the country in this manner, the Blue
Jay migrates from 'one part to another during the day only. A person
travelling or hunting by night, may now and then disturb the repose of a
Jay, which in its terror sounds an alarm that is instantly responded to by
all its surrounding travelling companions, and their multiplied cries make
BLUE JAY. 15
the woods resound far and near. While migrating, they seldom fly to
any great distance at a time without alighting, for like true rangers they
ransack and minutely inspect every portion of the woods, the fields, the
orchards, and even the gardens of the farmers and planters. Always exceedingly
garrulous, they may easily be followed to any distance, and the
more they are chased the more noisy do they become, unless a hawk happen
to pass suddenly near them, when they are instantly struck dumb, and, as
if ever conscious of deserving punishment, either remain motionless for a
while, or sneak off silently into the closest thickets, where they remain
concealed as long as their dangerous enemy is near.
During the winter months they collect in large numbers about the plantations
of the Southern States, approach the houses and barns, attend the
feeding of the poultry, as well as of the cattle and horses in their separate
pens, in company with the Cardinal Grosbeak, the Towhe Bunting, the
Cow Bunting, the Starlings and Grakles, pick up every grain of loose
corn they can find, search amid the droppings of horses along the roads,
and enter the corn cribs, where many are caught by the cat and the sons
of the farmer. Their movements on the wing are exceedingly graceful,
and as they pass from one tree to another, their expanded wings and tail,
exhibiting all the beauty of their graceful form and lovely tints, never
fail to delight the observer.
Convus CRISTATUS, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 157» Lath. Synops. vol. i. p. 3 8 6 .
Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 5 8 .
GARRULUS CRISTATUS, Swains, and Richards. Fauna Boreali-Americ. part ii. p. 2 9 3 .
BLUE JAY, CORVUS CRISTATUS, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. i. p. 2. pi. i. fig. 1.
Nuttall, Manual, part i. p. 2 2 4 .
Adult Male. Plate G i l . Fig. 1.
Bill short, strong, straight, compressed, acute; upper mandible with
the dorsal outline slightly arched, the sides sloping, the edges sharp and
overlapping, the tip slightly decimate; lower mandible with the back
narrow, the sides sloping. Nostrils basal, open, covered by the reversed
bristly feathers. Head rather large, neck short, body robust. Feet of
ordinary length; tarsus about the same length as the middle toe, anteriorly
scutellate, compressed, acute behind; toes free, scutellate, the inner
shorter than the outer; claws arched, compressed, acute.
Plumage soft, blended, glossy. A tuft of reflected, adpressed, bristly
feathers over the nostril on each side. Feathers of the head elongated,