54 THE CROW FAMILY 



tall trees." When settled on the trees they display their graces, 

 emitting an extraordinary medley of noises. "Some of them are 

 perpetually moving, jumping, and flitting from branch to branch, 

 and springing into the air to wheel round or pass over the tree, all 

 intent on showing off* their various colours vinaceous brown, sky 

 blue, velvet black, and glistening white to the best advantage." 

 Mr. Hudson does not appear to attach any nuptial character to this 

 performance. But that it has such is more than probable, judging 

 from the evidence supplied by others, and in particular by M. Xavier 

 Raspail in his description of what he calls the second marriage of 

 both jays and magpies. 1 



M. Raspail had occasion to shoot one of a pair of jays found 

 guilty of robbing small birds' nests. The survivor departed, but on 

 the morrow eight jays appeared, and spent the time either in a tree 

 uttering a low warbling or bubbling note, "un gazouillement tres 

 doux," or else flying about together. Next morning a couple were 

 busy building a fresh nest, erected, not like the first, on the outskirts 

 of the estate, but well within its boundaries, much to the owner's 

 disgust. Here we have a distinctly nuptial gathering, differing from 

 the one described by Mr. Hudson merely in being much less noisy 

 and demonstrative, a difference easily explained by the well-known 

 fact that in the breeding, season the jay is wont not only to exercise 

 greater caution than usual, but also to modify its startling screeches 

 into notes of less obtrusive fervour and a much lower key. 



Still more striking are the examples given by the same writer of 

 the second marriages of magpies. He shot one of a pair of these 

 birds which was engaged in building a nest in his park. Next morn- 

 ing a band of more than twenty made their appearance and spent 

 the whole morning in playing and in chasing each other through the 

 trees, with an accompaniment of "manifestations phon^tiques des 

 moins harmonieuses." In the afternoon they disappeared. Next 



1 Ch. Darwin, Descent of Man, Partn. p. 113 ; Ch. Waterton, Essays in Natural History, edit. 

 N. Moore, 1871 ; H. Seebohm, British Birds, i. 569; A. C. Smith, Birds of Wiltshire, 1887 ; W. H. 

 Hudson, Birds and Man, p. 232 ; X. Raspail, Bulletin de la SocitU Zoologiquede France, xxvi. MM. 



