266 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



if there is anything at hand to which he might take a 

 fancy. The bird has a very curious expression, turning 

 his head awry and looking at you closely with one grey 

 eye, as though forming a purely personal idea as to your 

 moral worth. The grey head gives him an oddly sage 

 appearance, and when he is wrapped in thought, his 

 feathers puffed out, he looks more Hke some strange 

 type of little old man than a bird. So one finds oneself 

 wondering what is at work in that strange little brain 

 of his. 



The jay, so closely allied in many ways, has ever 

 possessed such unenviable notoriety that in the reign of 

 George II an Act of Parliament was passed granting a 

 bounty of threepence for every bird killed. Since then 

 it has been heedlessly persecuted by gamekeeper and 

 farmer alike, but nevertheless the jay is still surprisingly 

 numerous in many parts of the country. Their distribu- 

 tion is very uneven. In some woods they are to be heard 

 all day long, yet in other parts one may live for years 

 amidst forests which would seem exactly to suit their 

 taste, and never hear a single jay. They cling for the most 

 part to waste lands, where the timber is small and the 

 undergrowth dense, and they have learnt by long perse- 

 cution to put the dense thickets to good use in the way 

 of taking advantage of their cover. Thus the jay is 

 more commonly heard than seen. Occasionally one 

 catches a glimpse — a vivid blue flash as he falls from one 

 tree top or mounts to the next, but he is a sly bird, and 

 but for his talkative habits would probably be a great 

 deal more plentiful. 



The jay feeds on insects, young birds, cherries, berries, 

 peas and vegetables of various kinds, and as many eggs 

 as he can get. Also he kills mice, which he skins before 

 swallowing. The young jays haunt the vicinity of their 

 nests for several weeks after, ajid so effectively do they 



