The Jay a Cannibal Bird. 95 



As regards the Jay being called Garrulus glandarius, 

 there is nothing of this, the name being more a miscon- 

 ception. For after the habits of the bird, as above 

 described and attested to, who could think it appro- 

 priate ? 



THE JAY A CANNIBAL BIRD. 



I have never known Jays so numerous in my neighbour- 

 hood (South Herefordshire) as they are at the present 

 time, and have been for a year or two back. Throughout 

 the past winter, and the autumn preceding, it has been a 

 common sight to see flocks of from half a dozen to a score 

 skirmishing about orchards, or along high hawthorn 

 hedges, screeching as though they would split open their 

 throats. This is evidence sufficient that exceptionally 

 inclement and trying winters, which make havoc among 

 many other species of birds, have done no hurt to them. 

 On the contrary, as I am inclined to think, that ex- 

 tremely rigorous winters are rather in their favour, 

 providing them with, as it were, a perpetual feast, and 

 the food most to their liking, which, I believe, is not 

 acorn, but flesh. During the long-continued snows of 

 January, 1880, and 1881, there was scarce a hedgerow 

 that had not fieldfares and redwings lying dead alongside 

 it, killed, not by the cold, but hunger ; since in both years 

 preceding the wild berry crop had failed, and everything 

 else eatable by these migratory birds was for weeks buried 

 up beyond their reach. Many of our permanently resident 

 kinds perished also, but certainly no Jays, these finding 

 sport, or at least plenteous sustenance, in what was 



