468 JAY 
methods that in the case of this species are only too easy and too 
effectual—by proffering temptation to trespass which it is not in 
Jay-nature to resist, and accordingly the bird runs great chance of 
total extirpation. Notwithstanding the war carried on against the 
Jay, its varied cries and active gesticulations shew it to be a 
sprightly bird, and at a distance that renders its beauty-spots 
invisible, it is yet conspicuous by its cimnamon-coloured body 
and pure white tail-coverts, which contrast with the deep black 
and rich chestnut that otherwise mark its plumage, and even 
the young at once assume a dress closely resembling that of the 
adult. The nest, generally concealed in a leafy tree or bush, is 
carefully built, with a lining formed of fine roots neatly interwoven. 
Herein from four to seven eggs, of a greenish-white closely freckled 
so as to seem suffused with light olive, are laid in March or April, 
and the young on quitting it accompany their parents for some 
weeks. 
Though the common Jay of Europe inhabits nearly the whole 
of this quarter of the globe south of 64° N. lat., its territory in the 
east of Russia is also occupied by G. brandi, a kindred form, which 
replaces it on the other side of the Ural, and ranges thence across 
Siberia to Japan ; and again on the Lower Danube and thence to 
Constantinople the nearly-allied G. krynickt (which alone is found 
in southern Russia, Caucasia, and Asia Minor) shares its haunts 
with it.! It also crosses the Mediterranean to Algeria and Morocco; 
but there, as in southern Spain, it is probably but a winter immi- 
grant. The three forms just named have the widest range of any 
of the genus. Next to them come G. atricapillus, reaching from 
Syria to Beloochistan, G. japonicus, the ordinary Jay of southern 
Japan, and G. sinensis, the Chinese bird. Other forms have a much 
more limited area, as G. cervicalis, the local and resident Jay of 
Algeria, G. hyrcanus, found on the southern shores of the Caspian 
Sea, and G. taivanus confined to the island of Formosa. The most 
aberrant species referred to the true Jays is the G. lidthi of Bona- 
parte (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850, p. 80, Aves, pl. xvii.), which, though 
said to come from some part of Japan (Salvadori, 4tti Accad. Torino, 
vii. p. 474), seems not to have been met with there, and its proper 
country is not known. 
Leaving the true Jays of the genus Garrulus, we may next 
consider those of a group, named, in 1831, Dysornithia by Swainson 
(FP. Bor.-Am. ii. p. 495) and Perisoreus by Bonaparte (Saggio &c. 
Anim. Vertebr. p. 43),? containing two species—one the Lanius 
1 Further information will possibly shew that these districts are not occupied 
at the same season of the year by the two forms. 
° Recent writers have preferred the latter term, though it was only used sub- 
generically by its author, who assigned to it no characters, which the inventor of 
the former was careful to do, regarding it at the same time as a genus. 
