JAY. 327 



who would hear its varied utterances ; for, on perceiving the 

 human presence, the bird instantly shifts to a thick bough 

 if such be near, or, if compelled to remain exposed, becomes 

 motionless and silent — looking like a dead stump, and when 

 the intruder's nearer approach urges a change of position it 

 drops as though shot into the brushwood beneath, making 

 its escape thence in some unexpected direction. 



As before observed, the Jay is less common in England 

 than formerly, though Mr. Cordeaux notes its increase of 

 late years in Lincolnshire ; but in Scotland, according to 

 the very careful researches of Mr. Lumsden (Scott. Nat. iii. 

 p. 233), it has decreased of late years even more rapidly 

 than in England, being in all counties south of the Gram- 

 pians but local, and in few anything but rare. North of that 

 chain it seems only to appear as a straggler. There is no 

 evidence of its occurrence in Orkney, and but one is recorded 

 in Shetland. All Mr. Lumsden's authorities concur in 

 saying that formerly the Jay was much more common in 

 Scotland, and that its decrease is attributable to its destruc- 

 tion by gamekeepers*. In Ireland it seems now to be 

 indigenous but in the southern half of the island, and even 

 there to be very local and far from numerous, though there 

 is reason to suppose, from the evidence adduced by Thompson, 

 that it once inhabited and bred in the northern counties. 

 In Norway and Sweden it seems to travel so far as lat 64" N., 

 but it occasionally extends far within the Arctic Circle, 

 Wolley having obtained it in autumn near Muonioniska. It 

 inhabits most parts of Finland, and is said to be resident 

 all the year round even at Kajana, and thence it is found 

 across the forest region of Kussia to the Ural Mountains, 

 where it is replaced by the nearly-allied but more deeply- 

 tinted Garrulus hrandtiA Further to the south the line 

 of demarcation between G. (ilandarius and the kindred G. 

 krynicki, which seems to be a distinctly recognizable form, 



* But -what also causes the death of a very large number of Jays is the value 

 set upon its pretty blue feathers by fishermen for making artificial flies. 



f Herr Sabanaeff informed Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser that the Jay found in 

 Perm, Kasan and Simbirsk is an intermediate "species" between G. brandti 

 and G. ylandarius. 



VOL. II. U U 



