FLORIDA JAY. 25^ 



the species is partially migratory. Their voice is not so agreeable as 

 that of the Garrulus cristatus, or Crested Blue Jay of the United States ; 

 they are quarrelsome, active, and noisy ; and construct their nests in 

 thickets. Their eggs I have not seen." "The Blue Jay, which is so 

 conspicuous an ornament to the groves and forests of the United States, 

 is also common in Florida. This beautiful and sprightly bird we ob- 

 served daily, in company with the Mocking-bird and the Cardinal Gros- 

 beak, around the rude habitations of the disheartened inhabitants, as if 

 willing to console them amid those privations which the frequent Indian 

 wars, and the various revolutions which their province has experienced, 

 have compelled them to bear." The Florida Jay, however, is a resident 

 in that country, or only removes from section to section. It is not con- 

 fined to Florida, where it was first noticed by Bartram, being found also in 

 Louisiana, and in the West extends northward to Kentucky ; but along 

 the Atlantic, not so far. In East Florida it is more abundant, being 

 found at all seasons in low thick covers, clumps, or bushes. They are 

 most easily discovered in the morning about sunrise on the tops of young 

 live-oaks, in the close thickets of which they are found in numbers. 

 Their notes are greatly varied, and in sound have much resemblance to 

 those of the Thrush and the Blue Jay, partaking a little of both : later 

 in the day it is more difficult to find them, as they are more silent, and 

 not so much on the tree-tops as among the bushes, which are too thickly 

 interwoven with briars and saw-palmettoes to be traversed ; and unless 

 the birds are killed on the spot, which they seldom are when struck with 

 fine shot, it is next to impossible to come at them in such situations. 

 This species, like its relatives, is omnivorous, but being inferior in 

 strength, does not attack large animals. The stomachs of our speci- 

 mens contained small fragments of shells, sand, and half-digested seeds. 



The Blue Jays, though also found in the same localities, are not so 

 numerous : they keep more in the woods, and their note is louder. 



The Florida Jay is eleven and a half inches long, and nearly fourteen 

 in extent ; the bill is one inch and a quarter long, hardly notched, and 

 of a black color, lighter at tip ; the incumbent setaceous feathers of the 

 base are grayish blue, mixed with a few blackish bristles ; the irides are 

 hazel brown ; the head and neck above, and on the sides, together with 

 the wings and tail, are bright azure ; the front, and a line over the eye, 

 bluish white ; the lores and cheeks of* a duller blue, somewhat mixed 

 with black ; the back is yellowish brown, somewhat mixed with blue on 

 the rump, the upper tail-coverts being bright azure ; the inner vanes 

 and tips of the quills are dusky, their shafts, as well as those of the 

 tail-feathers, being black. All the lower parts are of a dirty pale 

 yellowish gray, more intense on the belly, and paler on the throat, which 

 is faintly streaked with cinereous, owing to the base of the plumage 

 appearing from underneath, its feathers having blackish, bristly shafts, 



