~ JK NATURE NEAR LONDON 



screeching and yelling together up and down a 

 hedge near the road. Now in October they are 

 plentiful. One flew across overhead with an acorn 

 in its beak, and perched in an elm beside the high- 

 way. He pecked at the acorn on the bough, then 

 glanced down, saw me, and fled, dropping the 

 acorn, which fell tap-tap from branch to branch till 

 it reached the mound. 



Another jay actually flew up into a fir in the 

 green, or lawn, before a farm-house window, cross- 

 ing the road to do so. Four together were screech- 

 ing in an elm close to the road, and since then I 

 have seen others with acorns, while walking there. 

 Indeed, this autumn it is not possible to go far 

 without hearing their discordant and unmistakable 

 cry. They were never scarce here, but are un- 

 usually numerous this season, and in the scattered 

 trees of hedgerows their ways can be better ob- 

 served than in the close covert of copses and plan- 

 tations, where you hear them, but cannot see for 

 the thick fir boughs. 



It is curious to note the number of creatures 

 to whom the oak furnishes food. The jays, for 

 instance, are now visiting them for acorns ; in 

 the summer they fluttered round the then green 

 branches for the chafers, and in the evenings the 

 fern owls or goatsuckers wheeled about the verge 

 for these and for moths. Rooks come to the oaks 

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