44 



THE BLUE-JAY. 

 "A lovely bird, with azure wings."— Byron. 



One can hardly go on with the above quotation and credit 

 the subject of the present article with a " song that said a 

 thousand things," for the Blue-Jay's vocalizations are limited 

 to a degree. Ordinarih-, as has been neatly remarked, he 

 "encourages himself in patience" by uttering a sound like 

 " tschok " at intervals, and more rarely he points his bill to 

 heaven and his tail to earth and utters a cackling laugh, in 

 feeble imitation of the great Australian Kingfisher, commonly 

 known as the Laughing Jackass [Dacelo gigas). As a matter ot 

 fact, our present friend is more kingfisher than jay, this poverty 

 of vocabular}' being one of the points in which the relationship 

 comes out ; real jays having a remarkable flexibility of voice, 

 though their ordinary remarks are not much more musical 

 than those of the Roller familj', to which the Indian Blue-Jay 

 really belongs. Rollers also agree with kingfishers, and differ 

 from jays, in several easily noticeable points of habit, to say 

 nothing of more recondite anatomical distinctions. Thus, 

 they extend their feet behind when flying, instead of drawing 

 them up to the breast like the crow tribe ; they bolt their food 

 whole, never tearing it with bill and foot like the real jay; 

 they are practically pure animal feeders, and do not lay up 

 stores against a time of scarcity, unlike the omnivorous and 

 provident corvine jays; and most important of all, they nest 

 in holes and lay white eggs. It is this common confusion be- 

 tween two groups of birds very well known in their respective 

 habitats that makes it excu.sable to include in this .series a bird 

 which is not common in Calcutta b}' any means. In fact, I was 

 personally acquainted with only one wild specimen, who was 

 generally to be seen on one of the furlong posts of the race- 

 course, just opposite the jail. Hereabouts he spent most of 

 his time, for Rollers, again unlike the birds whose nan:e they 

 borrow, are very sedentary birds, waiting until they see some 

 small living thing and then pouncing upon it, instead of 

 actively hunting about. As to the quality of the game, they 

 are not very particular, for, as I have proved with a captive bird, 

 they will eat and digest toads, which are a good deal too much 

 for some birds' insides. The Roller throws up the hard part of 

 its food in quids or pellets, like many other in.sectivorous birds. 

 Young rollers are ugly little creatures at first, being quite 

 naked, but when the feathers have grown enough to cover the 

 body they are very pretty : their plumage, with the wings and 

 tail banded with Oxford and Cambridge blue, being like that of 



