188 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



cutters, have many superstitions with regard to this bird, and 

 tell some droll stories of its humors and feats. It is said, 

 among other things, to drive off or exterminate our hero, the 

 Blue Jay, before very long, wherever it makes its appearance. 



There is a more delicate and beautiful variety than either 

 of them, and better behaved, too, by the way ; for it pos- 

 sesses, among other accomplishments, some very sweet notes. 

 It belongs to the extreme South, and is not found north of 

 Louisiana. There is also yet another, a more beautiful va- 

 riety still, which has lately been discovered in California, 

 Cyanocorax Luxuosus. 



The Blue Jay has many of the traits of the Magpie, and, 

 like him, possesses an inveterate propensity for hiding every- 

 thing he can lay hold of in the shape of food. The Magpie 

 hides things that are of no value, as well ; but our Jay is in 

 every respect a utilitarian, and when, after feeding to reple- 

 tion, he is seen to busy himself for hours in sticking an acorn 

 here, or a beach-nut there, in a knot-hole, or wedging snails 

 between the splinters of some lightning-shivered trunk, or 

 making deposits beneath the sides of decaying logs, natural- 

 ists wonder what he is doing it for. But our Euphuist knows 

 well enough, and you may rest assured, if you see him along 

 that way next winter, as you will be apt to, if you watch, 

 you will find that he has not forgotten the place of one sin- 

 gle deposit ; and that, with a shrewder economy than the 

 Ant or the Squirrel, instead of heaping up his winter store 

 in one granary, where a single accident may deprive him of 

 all, he has scattered them here and there, in a thousand dif- 

 ferent spots, the record of which is kept in his own memory ; 

 so that it cannot be denied, whatever may be said of his 

 thieving and other dubious propensities, that the Blue Jay 

 is a decidedly sagacious personage so far as a pains-taking 

 care of that No. one, of which we have found him 

 to be so desperately smitten, is concerned. There is 

 also a variety of the Wood-pecker in California, Melan- 

 erpes formidvorus (Swains), which carries this propensity 



