corvida:. 



235 



THE JAY. 



Garrulus glandarius (Linneeus). 



The Jay is less abundant than formerly, owing chiefly to the dis- 

 like entertained for it on account of its egg-stealing proclivities, but 

 partly to the esteem in which its blue wing-feathers are held for 

 making artificial flies. Being, however, an inhabitant of woodlands, 

 and a wary as well as a wandering bird, it manages to hold its own, 

 and is still tolerably common throughout England and Wales. 

 Flocks from the Continent occasionally visit our east coast in 

 autumn. In Scotland the Jay is very local, and its numbers have 

 decreased, though its range has extended northward with the spread 

 of plantations, and now reaches to Glengarry, Inverness-shire. 

 Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley have not found it in Sutherland 

 or Caithness ; it is not recorded from the Outer Hebrides or the 

 Orkneys ; and Saxby is the sole asseverator of its occurrence in 

 the Shetlands. In Ireland it is very local, and almost confined to 

 the eastern and southern districts. 



South of the Arctic circle in Scandinavia, and of about 63° N. lat. in 

 Russia as far east as the valley of the Volga, the Jay is found through- 



