485 



confinement appear to prefer meat to any other description of food. Although the most common 

 notes of the Jay are harsh and grating, the bird in captivity soon becomes an amusing pet, from 

 the facility with which it imitates the sound of the human voice, and indeed almost any other 

 sound that is to be heard sufficiently often to afford the opportunity of acquiring it." Montagu 

 says that it will sometimes in the spring utter a sort of song in a soft and pleasing manner, but 

 so low as not to be heard at any distance, and at intervals introduce the bleating of a Lamb, the 

 mewing of a cat, the note of a Kite or Buzzard, the hooting of an Owl, and even the neighing of 

 a horse. These imitations are so exact, says Montagu, even in a natural wild state, that we have 

 frequently been deceived. Bewick says, " we have heard one imitate the sound of a saw so 

 exactly that, though it was on a Sunday, we could hardly be persuaded that there was not a 

 carpenter at work in the house." A correspondent in the ' Magazine of Natural History ' 

 says, " I have heard the Jay perform an uninterrupted song. It mocked the Greenfinch most 

 inimitably ; and it was a considerable time before I could persuade myself that it was an imita- 

 tion. But what amused me most of all was, its imitation of the neighing of a horse. This was 

 so near the truth, that some companions who were with me were a long time before they could 

 be convinced that the sounds proceeded from a bird. The neighing was very subdued and 

 suppressed, but it bore the most striking resemblance to the neighing of a colt at a distance ; 

 indeed, so close was the imitation, that, without a sight of the bird, no person could possibly, I 

 think, be persuaded that the sound proceeded from such an agent. These imitations were 

 accompanied, occasionally, with more subdued and melodious notes." 



" I have been favoured with a communication on this subject from G. W. Edgington, Esq., 

 Surgeon, of Binfield, in Berkshire, who, at the time of writing, had a male Jay that became an 

 excellent mimic before it was twelve months old. " The calling of the fowls to their food and the 

 various noises of the fowls themselves were given in perfection ; but the crowing of the cock was 

 not managed so well. The imitations of the barking and cry of the house-dog could not be 

 distinguished from the sounds made by the original." 



The food of the Common Jay consists during the summer season of various insects, worms, 

 fruit, mice, birds' eggs, and young birds, and, according to Naumann, small frogs. It is fond of 

 taking its share of garden-fruit ; and many of our readers are doubtless aware of its partiality for 

 peas. In the autumn and winter it feeds on nuts, berries of various kinds, and especially on 

 acorns, of which latter it often stores away a considerable quantity, and will thus sometimes 

 plant oaks by storing away the acorns in the ground and forgetting them. 



Like many other birds the Jay is subject to albinism, and we have seen several specimens 

 partly white, though none altogether of that colour. Mr. J. T. Moggridge, however, in a letter 

 to ' The Ibis' (1863, p. 158), says he saw in the Jardin des Plantes this species in a cage, "the 

 bird being entirely white as to plumage, having dark eyes, while its beak, tarsi, and feet were 

 flesh-colour." The Jay is an early breeder, laying in April, or, according to some naturalists, 

 even in March ; the nest is a somewhat bulky structure of sticks and twigs, inside rather neatly 

 finished, and lined with grasses and fine roots. It is usually placed in a high bush or a tree, and 

 tolerably well concealed. The eggs, usually six in number, are greyish white or greenish grey, 

 thickly speckled with pale brown dots and spots, which in some are collected at the larger end. 

 In a series in Dresser's collection, obtained in England, North Germany, Styria, and Finland, the 



