(sora 
Wild Birds Protection Act, 1896.—-In addition to any penalty under the Act, 1880, 
the Court may now order any trap, net, snare, etc., used by the offender to be forfeited. 
The Jay is protected throughout the whole year in the Borough of Cardiff. 
Vil. Remarks. 
Regarding the present status of the Jay in the British Islands, according to the latest 
information, it is not found in Shetland. Dr. Saxby only once saw a single bird off 
Halligarth going south on migration. We can find no record of its occurrence in Orkney, 
nor in the most northern of the Scottish counties. In Southern Scotland it is yet fairly 
common in some counties, or portions of counties, but rapidly decreasing through the 
persistent persecution of keepers. 
In Ireland it is restricted (according to Mr. Allan Ellison, Zool. 88, p. 106) to Kilkenny 
and Queen’s Counties, with parts of Carlow, Kildare, King’s County and Tipperary. 
In many parts of England, where game preserving is carried to excess, it has become 
practically extinct. In some other localities, however, it is yet tolerably plentiful. 
Should the Jay ever disappear in England, this misfortune will have been brought about 
by three causes. The hostility and persecution of gamekeepers ; the demand for the wings 
for hat plumes ; and in a less degree for the blue feathers from the wing for dressing salmon 
flies. The chief and most wholesale destruction is due to the first of these causes. Game- 
keepers are not the most discriminating of men; there are certain dislikes and prejudices 
which neither time, argument, or persuasion will ever induce them, as a class, to forego. The 
stereotyped charge against the Jay is that it plunders the nests of game birds, and occasionally 
snaps up a nestling. Possibly so, and we have no intention of disproving the charges ; yet, 
on the other side, we can testify that when resident in an old manor house, close to great: 
woodlands where Jays abounded, and at a time when we gave special attention to the increase 
and protection of game, daily almost going with the keeper on his trapping rounds, and deep 
in every question relating to woodcraft, in these’ now far away days we came to the opinion, 
stuck to ever since, that the actual injury done by Jays to game birds is greatly exaggerated, 
and not really worth taking into consideration, being probably outweighed by their good 
deeds in other directions. What we did not like was their partiality for ripe cherries aud 
filberts. 'The first, however, was always effectually guarded by nets, and the second by the 
occasional firing of a gun or pistol by the gardener. This, in a short time, made the thieves 
most cautious in their approaches. 
Jays are frequently taken in pole-traps, set in rides or open places in woods. This is a 
device for slowly torturing innocent birds to death, which, for ingenuity and cold-blooded 
cruelty, surpasses everything else of its sort. Shame, shame, we say, on any who still continue 
to either use or countenance this atrocity, which has done, and is doing, more than anything 
else, to bring discredit on the excessive preservation of game. 
There are some few landed gentry who will not allow their keepers a free hand, and we 
know of two charming country homes where one of the prettiest sights is to watch the Jays 
out of the neighbouring covers hopping about like great thrushes on the well-kept lawns to 
pick up grains of Indian corn scattered for them. 
Of the many associations which give a charm to English rural life, the scolding cry of 
the Jay, coming from some sheltered copse, is not the least pleasant. Cowper was well 
aware of this when he wrote— 
“The cawing rooks, and kites, which swim sublime 
In still repeated circles, screaming loud, 
The jay, the pie, and e’en the boding owl 
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.’ 
Of these, the Kite has gone, and, we fear, for ever; and the Jay, the Pie, and Owl only 
continue to exist, in vastly reduced numbers, by the forbearance of the few. 
Space would not allow us to go as fully into the subject as we would have wished. We 
cannot, however, pass over one of the most remarkable facts in connection with the life- 
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