JA Ve 469 
mfaustus of Linneeus and the Siberian Jay of English writers, 
which ranges throughout the pine-forests of the north of Europe and 
Asia, and the second the Corvus canadensis of the same author, or 
Canada Jay, occupying a similar station in America. The first is 
one of the most entertaining birds in the world. Its versatile eries 
and actions, as seen and heard by those who penetrate the solitude of 
the northern forests it inhabits, can never be forgotten by one who 
has had experience of them, any more than the pleasing sight of its 
rust-coloured tail, which an occasional gleam of sunshine will light 
up into a brilliancy quite unexpected by those who have only sur- 
veyed the bird’s otherwise gloomy appearance in the glass-case of a 
museum. It seems scarcely to know fear, obtruding itself on the 
notice of any passenger who invades its haunts, and should he halt, 
making itself at once a denizen of his bivouac. In confinement. it 
speedily becomes friendly, but suitable food for it is not easily 
found. Linneus seems to have been under a misapprehension 
when he applied to it the trivial epithet it bears; for by none of 
his countrymen is it deemed an unlucky bird, but rather the 
reverse. In fact, no one can listen to the cheery sound of its 
ordinary calls with 
any but a_ hopeful 
feeling. The Canada 
Jay, or “ Whiskey- 
Jack ” (the corruption 
probably of a Cree 
name), seems to be of 
a similar nature, but 
it presents a still more 
sombre coloration, its 
nestling plumage,! in- 
deed, being thoroughly 
Corvine in appearance 
and suggestive of its 
being a pristine form. 
As though to make 
amends for the dull 
plumage of the species 
last mentioned, North 
America offers some 
of the most brilliantly ae 
coloured of the sub- ren dae: 
family, and the com- 
mon Blue Jay of eastern Canada and the older States of the Union, 
Cyanurus cristatus, is one of the most conspicuous birds of the trans- 
1 In this it was described and figured (/. Bor.-Aim. ii. p. 296, pl. 55) as a 
distinct species, @. brachyrhynchus. 
