CORVID.T.. 



225 



••■''>7vj^- 



^^»"%^{, 



THE JAY. 



Garrulus glaxdarius (Linnceus). 



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

 like entertained for it by game-keepers, 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 very wary as well 

 as a wandering bird, it manages to hold its own in spite of persecu- 

 tion, and is still tolerably common throughout England and Wales. 

 In Scotland its numbers have decreased, but its range has extended 

 northward with the spread of plantations, and now reaches to Glen- 

 garry, Inverness-shire ; though Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley 

 have not found it in Sutherland or Caithness, nor does it visit the 

 Hebrides. Saxby asserts that he once saw it in the Shetlands, but 

 no one else has observed it there. In Ireland it seems to be a 

 diminishing and very local species, almost confined to the eastern 

 and southern districts. In our islands the Jay is resident, but large 

 flocks from the Continent sometimes visit our east coasts in autumn; 

 and this was especially the case in 1882, in the district eastward of 

 a line drawn from the Firth of Forth to Portland Bill in Dorset. 



T 



