4S4 AVES-JAY... NUTCRACKER. 



FLORIDA JAY. 1 



This bird is eleven inches and a half long. The head, neck, wings, and 

 tail are bright azure ; the front bluish white, the back yellowish brown. 

 The lower parts are yellowish gray. The Florida jay is not confined to that 

 country, but is found in Louisiana, and extends northward to Kentucky. It 

 is very abundant in East Florida, where it is found at all seasons in low 

 bushes. Their notes are varied greatly, and resemble those of the thrush 

 and blue jay. M. Ord, who has studied this species, says that they are 

 quarrelsome, active, and noisy, and construct their nests in thickets. Their 

 eggs he has not seen. 



THE COLUMBIA J A Y . 2 



This is the most splendid of the whole tribe of jays. It is thirty-one 

 inches long, and twenty-six in the extent of wings. Its general color is 

 bright blue, with purple reflections. The fore neck and anterior part of the 

 neck are black, and the rest of the under parts white. The tail is very 

 long, and the feathers of the head elongated into a crest. The individual 

 from which Mr Audubon's drawing was made, was taken on the Oregon 

 river. Nothing is known of its habits. 



Many of the foreign birds of the jay kind are exceedingly beautiful. The 

 Chinese jay is of two kinds, the red billed and that with a bluish bill. They 

 are both elegant birds, their plumage being finely varied with patches of a 

 fine velvet black, particularly about the head and throat. The Peruvian jay 

 is of a tender green, which, by insensible shades, assumes a bluish cast in 

 different parts of the body. The brown jay of Canada, and the Siberian jay 

 art. less remarkable. At Cayenne there are two other remarkable species, 

 one of which has three white spots on each side of the head ; and the other, 

 which is called the yellow bellied jay, is further distinguished by a golden 

 streak upon the crown of the head. 



THE NUTCRACKERS 



Is by some naturalists considered as of a distinct genus, by others it is 

 classed with the crow ; though in its manners it most resembles the jay, 



1 Corvus Floridanus, Audubon. 2 Corvus Bullockii, Audcbon. 



3 Nutifrag-a Caryocafactcs, Lin. This is the only individual of the genus ; it is charac- 

 tered by n bill long, straight, narrowed at the point, upper mandible rounded, longer than 

 the under, both terminated in an obtuse and depressed point ; nostrils basal, round, open, 

 concealed by hairs directed forward ; three toes before and one behind; tarsus longer than 

 the middle toe ; wings acuminated ; fourth quill feather the longest. 



