STELLER'S JAY. 251 



their favorite resort is a.mong the closest and thickest woods. Less 

 suspicious and cunning than the Crows, or even the Magpies, thej may- 

 be decoyed into snares and taken in great numbers, especially by imitating 

 the voice of one of their own species in difficulties, or by forcing a 

 captive individual to cry. They live in families, or by pairs, the greater 

 portion of the year ; and though considerable numbers may be seen 

 travelling at once, they always keep at intervals from each other, and 

 never in close flocks like the Crows. They are easily tamed, and are 

 susceptible of attachment ; learn readily to articulate words, and imitate 

 the cries of different animals. They have a troublesome propensity to 

 purloin and conceal small objects not useful to themselves, and as jewels 

 and precious metals are peculiarly apt to attract their notice, they have 

 been the cause, when kept as pets, of serious mischief. Every one is 

 familiar with the story of the Thieving Magpie, become so celebrated 

 by the music of Rossini, and which is founded on fact. 



Tlie Jays breed in woods, forests, orchards, preferring old and very 

 shaded trees, placing their nest in the centre against the body, or at 

 the bifurcation of large limbs. The nest is built without art, and is 

 formed of twigs and roots, whose capillary fibres serve as a lining inside : 

 the eggs are from four to six. The old ones keep the food for their 

 young in the oesophagus, whence they can bring it up when wanted. 

 The young are born naked, and remain for a long period in the nest, 

 being still fed for some time by the parents after they are full fledged. 



Unlike the melancholy Crows, which step gravely, lifting one foot 

 after the other, the Jays and Magpies move about nimbly by hopping, 

 and are constantly in motion while on the ground. Their flight is more- 

 over neither protracted nor elevated, but merely from tree to tree, and 

 from branch to branch, shooting straight forward at once Avhen wishing 

 to go any distance, now and then flapping their wings, and hovering as 

 they descend, when about to alight. It is quite the reverse with the 

 Crows ; and all these characters are of the greatest importance in the 

 establishment of natural groups. 



While the true Corvi, by their stout and almost hooked .bill, and tbe 

 carnivorous habits of some species, exhibit on the one hand the gradual 

 passage from the Vultures, and on the other, by the slender-billed 

 species, the transition to the Crow-blackbirds and Troopials ; the affi- 

 nities of the Jays present nice gradations to the genera already dismem- 

 bered from Corvus, such as Nucifraga, Pyrrhocorax, Bomhycilla, and 

 at the same time form other links with Lanius, and even with Tardus 

 and Acridothercs. 



There is one remarkable analogy of the Jays which we cannot pass 

 over in silence. It is, however singular, and hitherto unsuspected, with 

 the Titmouse {Parus). Form, habits, even the peculiar looseness of 

 texture of the plumage, all are similar in these genera, hitherto esti- 



