2 BLUE JAY. 
stained with purple; inside of the mouth, the tongue, bill, legs, and 
claws, black; iris of the eye, hazel. 
The Blue Jay is an almost universal inhabitant of the woods, fre- 
quenting the thickest settlements as well as the deepest recesses of 
the forest, where his squalling voice often alarms the deer, to the 
disappointment and mortification of the hunter; one of whom informed 
me, that he made it a point, in summer, to kill every Jay he could 
meet with. In the charming season of spring, when every thicket 
pours forth harmony, the part performed by the Jay always catches 
the ear. He appears to be among his fellow-musicians what the 
trumpeter is ina band, some of his notes having no distant resem- 
blance to the tones of that instrument. These he has the faculty of 
changing through a great variety of modulations, according to the 
particular humor he happens to be in. When disposed for ridicule, 
there is scarce a bird whose peculiarities of song he cannot tune his 
notes to. When engaged in the blandishments of love, they resem- 
ble the soft chatterings of a Duck, and, while he nestles among the 
thick branches of the cedar, are scarce heard at a few paces’ distance ; 
but he no sooner discovers your approach than he sets up a sudden 
and vehement outcry, flying off, and screaming with all his might, as 
if he called the whole feathered tribes of the neighborhood to witness 
some outrageous usage he had received. When he hops undisturbed 
among the high branches of the oak and hickory, they become soft 
and musical; and his calls of the female u stranger would readily 
mistake for the repeated screakings of an ungreased wheelbarrow. 
All these he accompanies with various nods, jerks, and other gesticula- 
tions, for which the whole tribe of Jays are so remarkable, that, with 
some other peculiarities, they might have very well justified the great 
Swedish naturalist in forming them into a separate genus by them- 
selves.* 
* This has now been done ; and modern ornithologists adopt the title Garrulus, 
of Brisson, for this distinct and very well defined group, containing many species, 
which agree intimately in their general form and habits, and are dispersed over 
every quarter of the world, New Holland excepted. The colors of their plumage 
are brown, gray, blue, and black ; in some distributed with sober chastity, wale, 
in others, the deep tints and decided markings rival the richest gems. 
Proud of cerulean stains, 
From Heaven’s unsullied arch purloin’d, the Jay 
Screams hoarse. Gisporne’s Walks in a Forest. 
In Bree eplical distribution, we find those of splendid plumage following the 
warmer climates, and associating there with our ideas of Eastern magnificence ; 
while the more sober dressed, and, in our opinion, not the least pleasing, range 
through more temperate and northern regions, or those exalted tracts in tropical 
countries, where all the productions in some manner receive the impress of an spice 
or northern station. This is no where better exemplified than in the specimens lately 
sent to this country from the lofty and-extensive plains of the Himalaya, where we 
have already met with prototypes of the European Jay, Black‘and Green Wood- 
peckers, Greater Titmouse, and Nuteracker. They inhabit woody districts ; in their 
dispositions are cunning, bold, noisy, active, and restless, but docile and easily 
tamed, when introduced.to the care of man, and are capable of being taught tricks 
and various sounds. The following instance of the latter propensity is thus related 
by Bewick :— “ We have heard oxe imitate the sound made by the action of a saw, 
so exactly, that, though it was on a Sunday, we could hardly-be persuaded that the 
person who kept it, had not a carpenter at work in the house. Another, at the ap- 
proach of caitle, had learned to hound a cur dog upon them, by whistling and calling 
2 
eh 
* 
