progresses in a series of hops. During summer the Jay is a sad thief, and 

 not only steals the eggs from its neighbours' nests, but devours the young 

 also, even carrying off the young pheasants from the rearing-coops. It will 

 also go into the gardens and eat the ripe fruit. During autumn its favourite 

 food consists of acorns, nuts, and beechmast, which it will bury in holes in 

 the ground or hide in crevices in trees, no doubt returning to these stores 

 in the depths of winter, when its food is difficult to find. In very hard weather 

 the Jay will even eat carrion, and at this season the keepers do great execution 

 with traps. 



The Jay probably pairs for life, as pairs of these birds will frequent one 

 locality and nest regularly in certain places year after year. Nest-building 

 is commenced in April, when the woods are becoming clothed in green foliage 

 and there is plenty of corn. The nest is usually not far from the ground, in 

 some tall holly, yew, or fir-tree ; but I have seen several nests in the New 

 Forest which were at least sixty feet from the ground, in tall beech-trees. 

 It is rather like a large Bullfinch's nest : coarse twigs form the foundation, 

 and, as the construction of the nest proceeds, finer and finer twigs are used, 

 till at last the lining is added, which consists of very fine rootlets beautifully 

 interwoven, and forming a smooth, round cup. The eggs are laid during the 

 last week in April and the first week in May, and are from five to seven in 

 number. They are greenish blue in ground-colour, and are, as a rule, thickly 

 speckled over the entire surface with very fine spots of olive brown, often with 

 a few streaks of rich dark brown on the larger end. Some specimens are only 

 marked on one end of the egg, others have the spots collected in a zone round 

 the egg, while a few are very sparingly marked and have a decidedly green 

 appearance. They vary from 1^34 to 1*20 inch in length, and from ro to 

 '86 inch in breadth. 



Only one brood is reared during the season, and the Jay is so quiet during 

 the whole period of incubation that it often rears its brood close to some 

 house, never being discovered till it leads its noisy brood from the nest. 



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