484 AVES—JAY...NUTCRACKER. 
\ E.L.OR 1 DAad, AW 1 
Tuts bird is eleven inches anda half long. The head, neck, wings, and 
tail are bright azure; the front bluish white, the back yellowish brown. 
The lower parts are yellowish gray. The Florida jay is not confined to that 
country, but is found in Louisiana, and extends northward to Kentucky. It 
is very abundant in East Florida, where it is found at all seasons in low 
bushes. Their notes are varied greatly, and resemble those of the thrush 
and blue jay. M. Ord, who has studied this species, says that they are 
quarrelsome, active, and noisy, and construct their nests in thickets. Their 
eggs he has not seen. 
THE COL UM-BiT AY Iw. 
Tuts is the most splendid of the whole tribe of jays. It is thirty-one 
inches long, and twenty-six in the extent of wings. Its general color is 
bright blue, with purple reflections. The fore neck and anterior part of the 
neck are black, and the rest of the under parts white. The tail is very 
long, and the feathers of the head elongated into a crest. The individual 
from which Mr Audubon’s drawing was made, was taken on the Oregon 
river. Nothing is known of its habits. 
Many of the foreign birds of the jay kind are exceedingly beautiful. The 
Chinese jay is of two kinds, the red billed and that with a bluish bill. They 
are both elegant birds, their plumage being finely varied with patches of a 
fine velvet black, particularly about the head and throat. The Peruvian jay 
is of a tender green, which, by insensible shades, assumes a bluish cast in 
different parts of the body. The brown jay of Canada, and the Siberian jay 
are less remarkable. At Cayenne there are two other remarkable species, 
one of which has three white spots on each side of the head; and the other, 
which is called the yellow bellied jay, is further distinguished by a golden 
streak upon the crown of the head. 
THE NUPCRACKERS 
{s by some naturalists considered as of a distinct genus, by others it 1s 
classed with the crow; though in its manners it most resembles the jay, 

1 Corvus Floridanus, AupuBon. 2 Corvus Bullockii, AUDUBON. 
8 Nucifraga Caryocatactes, Lin. This is the only individual of the genus; 11 is charac- 
tericel by a bill long, straight, narrowed at the point, upper mandible rounded, longer than 
the under, both terminated in an obtuse and depressed point; nostrils basal, reund, open, 
concealed by hairs directed forward; three toes before and one behind ; tarsus suger than 
the middle toe ; wings acuminated ; fourth quill feather the longest. 
