COMMON JAY. 569 
GARRULUS GLANDARIUS. 
COMMON JAY. 
(PLate 16.) 
Garrulus garrulus, Briss. Orn. ii. p. 47 (1760). 
Corvus glandarius, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 156 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimorum— 
(Gray), (Bonaparte), (Cabanis), (Schlegel), (Gould), (Dresser), &c. 
Glandarius pictus, Koch, Syst. baier. Zool. i. p. 99 (1816). 
Garrulus glandarius (Linn.), Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. &c. Brit. Mus. p- 18 (1816). 
Lanius glandarius (Linn.), Nilss. Orn. Suec. i. p. 75 (1817). 
The Jay is one of the most beautiful of our native birds; but on account 
of its proneness to pilfer from gardens and orchards and occasionally 
to strangle a young Pheasant or Partridge, it finds no mercy from the 
gamekeeper or gardener, and doubtless from this cause is decreasing in 
numbers. It is still found more or less commonly in all the wooded 
parts of England, and in some districts appears even to be increasing in 
numbers, as, for instance, in North Lincoinshire ; but in Scotland it has 
of late years become much rarer. According to the facts collected by 
Mr. Lumsden (‘Scottish Naturalist,’ iii. p. 233) the bird is evidently 
extending its range northwards. In the days of Macgillivray the woods 
skirting the Grampians were apparently its northern limits; but now it 
occasionally ranges north of this boundary. It is only in the counties of 
Forfar, Perth, the central parts of Argyll, Dumbarton, parts of Stirling, 
Clackmannan, and Kinross that the Jay is at all common ; and throughout 
the country, from the reports received, it appears that the bird is less 
common than it used to be, most observers stating that incessant persecu- 
tion is the cause. It has once been observed in Shetland, and also in 
Caithness, but cannot be traced to the Orkneys, nor does it ever appear 
to visit the Outer Hebrides or the Western Isles. It is only in the 
southern half of Ireland that the Jay somewhat locally occurs, although, 
according to Thompson, the bird evidently at one time bred in the 
northern portions of the island. 
The geographical distribution of the “ true Jays” forms the subject of 
a very interesting map placed as a frontispiece to Wallace’s ‘Island 
Life.’ It must not, however, be supposed that all the species whose range 
is there denoted are nearly allied to our bird. We may reject Garrulus 
lidthi as not being a true Jay at all; G. lanceolatus may be also dismissed 
as subgenerically distinct from our bird, having quite a different pattern 
of colour on the wings, tail, and head; G. bispecularis, G. sinensis, and 
G. taivanus are local races of the tropical form of our Jay, which have 
become completely differentiated from it, having lost every trace of black 
