14 



BLUE JAY. 



spreading alarm and sorrow around him. The cries of the dis- 

 tressed parents soon bring together a number of interested specta- 

 tors (for birds in such circumstances seem truly to sympathize with 

 each other), and he is sometimes attacked with such spirit as to be 

 under the necessity of making a speedy retreat. 



He will sometimes assault small birds, with the intention of 

 killing and devouring them; an instance of which I myself once 

 witnessed over a piece of woods near the borders of Schuylkill ; 

 where I saw him engaged for more than five minutes pursuing 

 what I took to be a species of Motacilla, wheeling, darting and 

 doubling in the air, and at last, to my great satisfaction, got dis- 

 appointed, by the escape of his intended prey. In times of great 

 extremity, when his hoard or magazine is frozen up, buried in snow, 

 or perhaps exhausted, he becomes very voracious, and will make 

 a meal of whatever carrion or other animal substance comes in the 

 way; and has been found regaling himself on the bowels of a Robin 

 in less than five minutes after it was shot. 



There are, however, individual exceptions to this general cha- 

 racter for plunder and outrage, a proneness for which is probably 

 often occasioned bv the wants and irritations of necessitv. A Blue 

 Jay, which I have kept for some time, and with whom I am on 

 terms of familiarity, is in reality a very notable example of mild- 

 ness of disposition and sociability of manners. An accident in the 

 woods first put me in possession of this bird, while in full plumage, 

 and in high health and spirits ; I carried him home with me, and 

 put him into a cage already occupied by a Gold-winged Wood- 

 pecker, where he was saluted with such rudeness, and received 

 such a drubbing from the lord of the manor, for entering his pre- 

 mises, that, to save his life, I was obliged to take him out again. 

 I then put him into another cage, where the only tenant was a fe- 

 male Orchard Oriole. She also put on airs of alarm, as if she con- 

 sidered herself endangered and insulted by the intrusion ; the Jay 

 meanwhile sat mute and motionless on the bottom of the cage, 



