COMMON JAY. 569 



GARRULUS GLANDARIUS. 

 COMMON JAY. 



(Plate 16.) 



Garrulus garrulus, By-iss. Orn. ii. p. 47 (1760). 



Corvus g-kndarius, Limi. Syst. Nat. i. p. 156 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimorum— 



{Gray), {Bonaparte), {Cahanis), {Schlegel), {Gould), {Dresser), &c. 

 Glandarius pictus, Koch, Syst. baier. Zool. i. p. 99 r]816). 



Garrulus glandariua {Linn?), Leach, Syst. Cat. Mcimm. 8ic. Brit. Mies. p. 18 (1816). 

 Lanius glandarius {Linn.), Nilss. Orn. Sueo. i. p. 75 (1817). 



The Jay is one of tlie most beautiful of our native birds ; but on account 

 of its proneness to pilfer from gardens and orchards and occasionally 

 to strangle a young Pheasant or Partridge, it finds no mercy from the 

 gamekeeper or gardener, and doubtless from this cause is decreasing in 

 numbers. It is still found more or less commonly in all the wooded 

 parts of England, and in some districts appears even to be increasing in 

 numbers, as, for instance, in North Lincolnshire ; but in Scotland it has 

 of late years become much rarer. According to the facts collected by 

 Mr. Lumsden {' Scottish Naturalist,' iii. p. 233) the bird is evidently 

 extending its range northwards. In the days of Macgillivray the woods 

 skirting the Grampians were apparently its northern limits ; but now it 

 occasionally ranges north of this boundary. It is only in the counties of 

 Forfar, Perth, the central parts of Argyll, Dumbarton, parts of Stirling, 

 Clackmannan, and Kinross that the Jay is at all common ; and throughout 

 the country, from the reports received, it appears that the bird is less 

 common than it used to be, most observers stating that incessant persecu- 

 tion is the cause. It has once been observed in Shetland, and also in 

 Caithness, but cannot be traced to the Orkneys, nor does it ever appear 

 to visit the Outer Hebrides or the Western Isles. It is only in the 

 southern half of Ireland that the Jay somewhat locally occurs, although, 

 according to Thompson, the bird evidently at one time bred in the 

 northern portions of the island. 



The geographical distribution of the " true Jays " forms the subject of 

 a very interesting map placed as a frontispiece to Wallace's ' Island 

 Life.' It must not, however, be supposed that all the species whose range 

 is there denoted are nearly allied to our bird. We may reject Garrulus 

 lidthi as not being a true Jay at all ; G. lanceolatus may be also dismissed 

 as subgenerically distinct from our bird, having quite a different pattern 

 of colour on the wings, tail, and head ; G. bispecularis, G. sinensis, and 

 G. taivanus are local races of the tropical form of our Jay, which have 

 become completely differentiated from it, having lost every trace of black 



