22 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



so innocent that we can laugh at our dupe when 

 we practise it ! nor do we afterwards despise our 

 superior cunning and feel ashamed, as when we 

 slaughter wild birds with far-reaching shot which 

 they cannot escape* 



All these corvine birds which the gamekeeper 

 pursues so relentlessly, albeit they were before him, 

 killing, when they killed, to better purpose, and, let 

 us hope, will exist after him all these must greatly 

 surpass other kinds in sagacity to have escaped 

 extermination. In the present condition of things 

 the jay is perhaps the best off on account of his 

 smaller si^e and less conspicuous colouring ; but 

 whether more cunning than the crow or magpie or 

 not, in perpetual alertness and restless energy or 

 intensity of life he is without an equal among 

 British birds. And this quality forms his chief 

 attraction ; it is more to the mind than his lifted 

 crest and bright eyes, his fine vinaceous brown, and 

 the patch of sky-blue on his wings. One would miss 

 him greatly from the woods ; some of the melody 

 may well be spared for the sake of the sudden, 

 brain-piercing, rasping, rending scream with which 

 he startles us in our solitary forest walks. 



It is this extreme liveliness of the jay which makes 

 it more distressing to the mind to see it pent in a 

 cage than other birds of its family, such as the magpie, 



