The Wood La/rk. 5 



hair, in dense masses of foliage, as for instance, against the 

 trunk of a pollard oak or ash, or towards the top of a flr 

 tree, preferring, however, the former situation. Its eggs are 

 grey, spotted with brown, and four or five in number; there 

 are usually two broods in the season; and if the young are 

 intended to be brought up by hand, they must be taken from 

 the nest when the tail and wing feathers are about an inch 

 long; they are easily reared on meat, raw or cooked, bread 

 crumbs and yolk of egg, or, preferably, the flesh of small 

 birds and insects, especially caterpillars : when full grown they 

 will eat, and thrive on, anything that comes to table. Hand- 

 reared Jays often become very tame, while those captured when 

 full-grown always retain their wildness. 



As the Jay is a great eater, the utmost care and attention 

 and a large cage are necessary to keep its beautiful plumage 

 in good order; for this is, after all, its chief attraction, for it 

 rarely learns to speak more than a word or two, and cannot 

 be safely trusted at large among other birds. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE WOOD LABE. 



I'N the early part of the winter following the purchase and 

 premature death of my poor Jay, our gardener, on her way 

 to work one morning, picked up in the snow a little half-dead 

 bird with a broken wing, the still-living proof of some bumpkin's 

 unskilful gunnery, and brought it on to our house as a present 

 for me. 



I was yet in bed when she arrived, but the news that 

 Marie Baudoin was down stairs with a live bird, acted like 

 a charm, so that I was up and dressed in a much shorter 

 space of time than had ever happened to me before. 



"Poor little thing ! How did you catch it?" and a hundred 



