520 NATURAL HISTORY UF BIRDS. 



are so well known that wv only refer to the figure, wliich represents the Mexican 

 representative of our long-crested jay. The blue-colored jays are esjiecially character- 

 istic of the New World, and lead us directly to the glorious Central and South 

 American Xuiithoura jays, varied with deep black, cobalt, azure, white, yellow, and 

 green. 



The niagjiies may be said to differ from the jays in having inueli larger and more 

 graduated tails, the central j)air of rcctrices being usually lengthened considerably 

 beyond the rest. We may regard the so-called blue magpies {CyanojioHns) as leading 

 from the jays, though tiie chief interest oi these birds lays in their geographical distri- 

 buliim. Like most of the true magpies their home is the Old World. But wliilc the 

 other forms have their centre of distribution in the Himalayas and the countries to 

 the southeast, the two species of Ci/tiiiopofius are restricted, one, ('. cixiki, to the 

 jjeninsula of .Sjiain, while the other, ('. vijaiius, is oidy found in Eastern Asia, including 

 Japan ; tlius these two species, which are so closely alike that it takes an expert 

 ornithologist to distinguish between them, are separated by about five thousand miles 

 of continuous land, a most unicjue case of discontinuous geographical distribution. 

 We said that most of the magpies are Old World birds, for tlie reason only that 

 representatives of the genus Pica enter the North American fauna. The reservation 

 was not made to include the long-crested and long-tailed Central American genus 

 Calocitta, which may be regarded as an extreme development of the blue-jays. We 

 even doubt the jiropriety of removing the Oriental genus Urocisga, created for the 

 reception of the bird figured in the accompanying cut, the red-billed blue magj)ie 

 ( U. eri/tlir<irlupichi(it) and allies from the jays. The species in (juestion is ashy cobalt 

 blue above, whitish beneath; liead, neck, and breast, black with white markings 

 above; tail and wings blue, marked with white; bill coral-red, and feet orange. In 

 sj)ite of its long tail, it is said to be ipiite terresti'ial in its habits, and to feed almost 

 entirely on the ground. It is credited with a curious antii>athy towards the leojiard; 

 several of these birds, when discovering it, will follow it for more than a mile, perching 

 on the trees and bushes above it, and kee]iing up a continual screeching. 



But we have to return to the cut which we referred to when speaking of the 

 Siberian jay, as the u]iper figure represents the spotted nut-cracker {Xucifraya 

 caryocuUirtes), a near relative of our North American Picicorvit^ coliinibia/u/s. The 

 former has a most interesting history on account of the mystery which, until a short 

 time ago, surrounded its breeding habits, for although resident in many jihaces in the 

 very heart of Euro])e, it is scarcely more than twenty years ago tliat the first 

 authenticated eggs of this bird were i>rocurcd and described, and the search for the 

 nut-cracker's eggs is nearly a jiarallel to that of AVolley's search for the wax-wing's 

 eggs. The reason why this bird for so long a time eluded the efforts of the oologists 

 was the fact that it breeds ^ery early, often before the snow melts away, and the 

 total change of the bird during the breeding season, it being then silent and shy, 

 though at other times noisy and daring. Its color is dark brown spotted with white. 



Tliis bird opens the series of the crows, which are char.acterized by comi)ar.atively 

 short tail, long wint;s, a straiirht, conical, ancl strong bill, and generally uniform black 

 plumage. This group contains the largest forms of the family ; indeed, the largest 

 passerine bird known is the rap.icious and cunning raven (Corvux conij-), in which tlie 

 family reaches its highest develo]>ment. The two PaJa'arctic sjiecies, C. comix anH 

 C. corone, the hooded-crow and the carrion-crow of Eurojic, have been a source of 

 perplexity to Old World ornithologists, presenting a question similar to and nearly 



