472 Practical Game Preserving. 



of them frequently congregate round a hawk or an owl 

 and pounce upon it at every available opportunity until 

 they injure or kill it, or force it to take refuge in a 

 crevice of a tree. Although the jay is a great enemy 

 to all other birds, it has one redeeming quality though 

 a sportsman might not think so and that is, that it 

 announces the presence of a man with a gun to all 

 the feathered creatures in the forest. The moment they 

 hear its harsh clamorous cries they hasten away to safe 

 quarters, and leave the fowler execrating that garrulous 

 sentinel. I have often been compelled to kill jays when 

 after grouse in the woods, in order to get an opportunity 

 of obtaining a single shot at the objects of my search' 

 but even in their death struggles they kept scolding in 

 their most grating and defiant tones. It is doubtful, however, 

 if they act the part of sentinels from any sense of kindness. 

 Some persons are positive about this matter, and assert 

 that they do it out of mere mischief to annoy the sportsman, 

 and they go so far as to say that nothing on earth gives 

 a jay greater delight than to almost scare the life out 

 of its forest companions and send them scurrying in 

 every direction, while it sits perched on a tree and hoarsely 

 mocks them." This most excellent description of the 

 jay's character brings into considerabe prominence all the 

 vicious characteristics of this most intolerably mischievous 

 bird. 



The nest of the oak jackdaw, jay piet, or jay pie, is 

 rather flat in form, the materials sticks, grass and fibrous 

 roots, the former being used as the foundation upon 

 which the latter are laid to form a fairly even nest. The 



