316 THE JAY. 



ful of the caution which is its peculiar characteristic at other seasons 

 of the year, the jay becomes remarkably daring and adventurous in 

 pea and cherry time. To this unlucky yearning for the good things 

 of the garden, I attribute the general scarcity of this truly British 

 bird. Even here the jay is never abundant, though a safe retreat is 

 always open to it ; so that, whilst the magpie is very numerous, it is 

 comparatively a scarce bird. Two or three nests, at most, are all I 

 can annually produce. These, by the way, I find are much more 

 compact, and better put together, than those which naturalists have 

 hitherto described. 



The nest of the jay is never seen near the tops of trees, like those 

 of the magpie and the crow. He who feels inclined to study the 

 nidification of this bird must search the lower branches of the oak, 

 or inspect the woodbine mantling round the hazel. In such situa- 

 tions he will find the nest, which mostly contains six eggs ; and if 

 he advances with " cautious step and slow," he may approach within 

 a yard of it before the sitting bird will take its flight. There seems 

 to be an erroneous opinion current concerning some birds, which are 

 supposed to forsake their eggs if they are handled, be it ever in so 

 slight a manner. This requires some explanation. If you rush up 

 abruptly to a nest, so as to terrify the old bird, you will find, with 

 very few exceptions, that it will forsake the place. If, on the con- 

 trary, you approach the nest of any bird in gentleness and silence, 

 and allow the owner to slip off without being fluttered, you may take 

 the eggs out of the nest, and blow upon them, and put them in your 

 mouth if you choose, or change their original position when you 

 replace them in the nest, notwithstanding which the bird will come 

 back to them (even though it be a ringdove), and continue to sit on 

 them as attentively as before. 



The jay being one of those birds which have their brilliant colours 

 prior to their first moulting, you will find the male and female so 

 much alike, that it will be no easy matter to distinguish the one 

 from the other. 



The young of this bird are born blind : of course the parent bird 

 never covers the eggs with any part of the materials which form the 

 nest, when she has occasion to be absent. Here let me remark the 

 immense difference that exists betwixt a newly-hatched bird with its 



