316 FLORIDA FAY. 
in a valuable paper which he drew up on his return from 
Florida, where he enjoyed the advantage of studying this spe- 
cies in its native haunts. 
“When we first entered East Florida,’ says Mr Ord, 
“which was in the beginning of February, we saw none of 
these birds; and the first that we noticed were in the vicinity 
of St Augustine, on the 13th of the above-mentioned month. 
We afterwards observed them daily in the thickets near the 
mouth of the St Juan. Hence we conjectured that the species 
is partially migratory. Their voice is not so agreeable as that 
of the Garrulus cristatus, or crested blue jay of the United 
States ; they are quarrelsome, active, and noisy, and construct 
their nests in thickets. Their eggs I have not seen.” “The 
blue jay, which is so conspicuous an ornament to the groves 
and forests of the United States, is also common in Florida. 
This beautiful and sprightly bird we observed daily, in com- 
pany with the mocking-bird and the cardinal grosbeak, around 
the rude habitations of the disheartened inhabitants, as if will- 
ing to console them amid those privations which the frequent 
Indian wars, and the various revolutions which their province 
has experienced, have compelled them to bear.’ The Florida 
jay, however, is a resident in that country, or only removes 
from section to section. It is not confined to Florida, where 
it was first noticed by Bartram, being found also in Louisiana, 
and in the west extends northward to Kentucky, but along 
the Atlantic not so far. In East Florida it is more abundant, 
being found at all seasons in low thick covers, clumps, or 
bushes. They are most easily discovered in the morning 
about sunrise, on the tops of young live oaks, in the close 
thickets of which they are found in numbers. Their notes are 
ereatly varied, and in sound have much resemblance to those 
of the thrush and the blue jay, partaking a little of both. Later 
in the day it is more difficult to find them, as they are more 
silent, and not so much on the tree-tops as among the bushes, 
which are too thickly interwoven with briers and saw-palmettos, 
to be traversed; and unless the birds are killed on the spot, 
