BIRDS 153 



ascertained to have been taken in the neighbourhood of Dum- 

 fries. In very severe weather, about the year 1870, a single 

 Cornish Chough was shot by a farmer while feeding out of a 

 sheep-trough in a field near Longtown. A few years later a 

 similar fate befell another Chough, killed near Wigton. Both 

 these birds were obtained within a short distance of the Solway 

 Firth. There can be little doubt that they had strayed from 

 the precipices which their race then tenanted on the coast of 

 the Scottish Solway. 



JAY. 



Garrulus glandarius (L.). 



Though less numerous than formerly, the Jay continues to 

 maintain its fodting in many of our larger woodlands. You may 

 often hear this bird screeching in the trees that line the shores 

 of Ulleswater, nor is it uncommon in the neighbourhood of 

 Derwentwater or Windermere. On the contrary, a fair number 

 of Jays nest in the heart of Lakeland, while the numbers of the 

 residents are often augmented in winter by immigration from 

 the Continent. Mr. Dickinson was perhaps the first to point 

 out that flocks of Jays visit Lakeland from abroad : * Twice, 

 with some years intervening, I have known flocks of Jays 

 moving over the country. Their resting-places may easily be 

 detected by their droppings, which are of a jet black colour, at 

 least during their flights.' x 



MAGPIE. 



Pica rustica (Scop.). 



The Pie's adaptiveness of character, which suggested the 

 popular belief in ' Bush Magpies ' and ' Tree Magpies,' has 

 enabled this persecuted bird to maintain its footing in greater 

 or lesser numbers in all parts of Lakeland, from the grasslands 

 of Lower Furness to the stone walls of the higher fells. The 

 present deerkeeper in Martindale exterminated all the Magpies 

 of that dale some twenty years ago, and the species is generally 

 much scarcer than it used to be. In the seventeenth century 

 1 Rem, West. Cumberland, p. 13. 



