PASSERES. ( 200 ) CORVWyE. 



THE JAY, 



JAY PIE, JAY PIET. 



Garrulus glandular ius. 



^¥ lap Pt^t 



/ herde the Jay and the Throstell, 



The Mavis meynd ^ in Mr song, 

 The Wodewale farde as a bell, 



That the wode about me ru?ig. 



True Thomas. 2 



The Jay was in former times a well-known bird in the 

 wooded districts of the county, but now it is so rare that it 

 is very seldom seen, having been completely extirpated by 

 gamekeepers many years ago, on account of its egg-sucking 

 propensities. The Eev. Andrew Baird, in his account of the 

 united parishes of Cockburnspath and Oldcambus, written 

 in 1834, mentions that it then built in considerable numbers 

 in Penmanshiel Wood. Mr. Hardy states that, some time 

 before that period, its numbers had been greatly reduced by 

 trapping, and it was rooted out there at a somewhat later 

 date. In 1837, it was still frequenting the neighbourhood ; 

 for in a Naturalist's Calendar, kept at Penmanshiel by 

 Mr. Hardy's brother, two Jays are noted as having been seen 

 on the 2nd of May that year. About the same time it used to 

 frequent Dunglass Dean, and Mr. Hardy remembers that in 

 his youth he often saw it nailed up by the head to game- 



1 To lament. 



^ .lainieson's Pojmlar Ballads and Songs, Ediu. 1806, vol. ii. p. 11. 



