THE JAY. 229 



thoroughly conversant with their habits, will certainly 

 alarm him. Few things sound more weird and un- 

 earthly than their dissonant cry, especially when given 

 forth in the dusk of evening in the deep and silent woods. 

 Numbers are heard calling together, and this, with the 

 occasional cry of the Wood Owl or the wail of the 

 Nightjar, forms a concert which the country people are 

 apt to listen to with superstitious awe. 



We are yet in much perplexity as to the time of 

 nidification of various birds. Thus the Magpie or 

 Rook will commence nesting duties long before the 

 leaves are on the trees, while the Jay, so closely related 

 to them, waits until the flowery month of May arrives 

 before a twig is laid in furtherance of its nest. Difficul- 

 ties, too, arise in the nesting site ; for who can tell us 

 why the Jay repairs to a lowly bush while the Rooks 

 invariably choose the topmost branches of tall trees for 

 their purpose ? Who can inform us why the Jackdaw 

 rears its young in holes in walls, rocks, or trees, while 

 the young of the Carrion Crow are exposed to the 

 biting winds of heaven in an open nest far up the oak's 

 sturdy branches? Depend upon it some end is served, 

 but Nature still holds the secret in her keeping. In 

 May, therefore, the Jay selects a site for its nest. We 

 must never search for his abode far up the trees, for the 

 Jay repairs to shrubs for its purpose. In hollies, yews, 

 young fir trees, or whitethorns, we often find it. A 

 favourite place is where the creeping, clustering wood- 

 bine grows in a tangled mass over some friendly shrub, 

 but wherever we notice it it is well made. Sticks, not so 

 coarse, however, as those used by the Magpie, cemented 

 and lined with mud and fibrous roots, are the materials 

 employed. Let the young naturalist picture to him- 

 self a Magpie's nest without the roof of sticks and 

 slightly smaller, and he has a tolerably good idea of the 



