THE BLUE JAY. 113 



one nest to another every day, and suck the newly laid eggs of the different 

 birds in the neighbourhood, with as much regularity and composure as a 

 physician would call on his patients. I have also witnessed the sad disap- 

 pointment it experienced, when, on returning to its own home, it found its 

 mate in the jaws of a snake, the nest upset, and the eggs all gone. I have 

 thought more than once on such occasions that, like all great culprits, when 

 brought to a sense of their enormities, it evinced a strong feeling of remorse. 

 While at Charleston, in November 1S33, Dr. Wilson of that city told me 

 that on opening a division of his aviary, a Mocking-bird that he had kept for 

 three years, flew at another and killed it, after which it destroyed several 

 Blue Jays, which he had been keeping for me some months in an adjoining 

 compartment. 



The Blue Jay seeks for its food with great diligence at all times, but more 

 especially during the period of its migration. At such a time, wherever 

 there are chinquapins, wild chestnuts, acorns, or grapes, flocks will be seen 

 to alight on the topmost branches of these trees, disperse, and engage with 

 great vigour in detaching the fruit. Those that fall are picked up from the 

 ground, and carried into a chink in the bark, the splinters of a fence rail, or 

 firmly held under foot on a branch, and hammered with the bill until the 

 kernel be procured. 



As if for the purpose of gleaning the country in this manner, the Blue 

 Jay migrates from one part to another during the day only. A person 

 travelling or hunting by night, may now and then disturb the repose of a 

 Jay, which in its terror sounds an alarm that is instantly responded to by all 

 its surrounding travelling companions, and their multiplied cries make the 

 woods resound far and near. While migrating, they seldom fly to any great 

 distance at a time without alighting, for like true rangers they ransack and 

 minutely inspect every portion of the woods, the fields, the orchards, and 

 even the gardens of the farmers and planters. Always exceedingly garru- 

 lous, they may easily be followed to any distance, and the more they are 

 chased the more noisy do they become, unless a Hawk happen to pass 

 suddenly near them, when they are instantly struck dumb, and, as if ever 

 conscious of deserving punishment, either remain motionless for awhile, or 

 sneak off silently into the closest thickets, where they remain concealed as 

 long as their dangerous enemy is near. 



During the winter months they collect in large numbers about the planta- 

 tions of the Southern States, approach the houses and barns, attend the 

 feeding of the poultry, as well as of the cattle and horses in their separate 

 pens, in company with the Cardinal Grosbeak, the Towhe Bunting, the Cow 

 Bunting, the Starlings and Grakles, pick up every grain of loose corn they 

 can find, search amid the droppings of horses along the roads, and enter the 



Vol. IV. 16 



