64 
GAHRULUS STELLERI. 
twigs and roots, whose capillary fibres serve as alio*® 
inside ; the eggs are from four to six. The old o ,lf 
keep the food for their young- iu the oesophagus, whe>>'! 
they can bring it up when wanted. The” young ^ 
born naked, and remain for a long period in the n^ 
being still fed for some time by the parents after th c -' 
arc full fledged. 
Unlike the melancholy crows, which step graV^ 
lifting- one foot after the other, the jays and magP'f 
move about nimbly by hopping, and are constantly- 
motion while on the ground. Their flight ismoreo^ 
neither protracted nor elevated, hut merely from w 
to tree, and from branch to branch, shooting strain 
forward at once when wishing to go any distance, ' ,l1 ' 
and then flapping their wings, and hovering as th*- 
descend, when about to alight. It is quite the ret#' 
with the crows ; and all these characters are of' 1 " 
greatest importance in the establishment of 
groups. , 
While the true Corvi, by their stout and almost boofa 
bill, and the carnivorous habits of some species, exlw 
on the one hand the gradual passage from the vultU r f 
and on the other by the slender-billed species, V 
transition to the crow blackbirds and troopials ; *! 
affinities of the jays present nice gradations to y 
genera already dismembered from Corpus, such ? 
Nucifraga, Pyrrhocorax, Bombycilla, and at the 
time form other links with Lanins, and even w 
Turdus and Acridotheres. 
There is one remarkable analogy of the jays ffhf 
we cannot pass over in silence. It is, however singw 
and hitherto unsuspected, with the titmouse ’ ( Put*\ 
Form, habits, even the peculiar looseness of text off, 
the plumage, all are similar in these genera, hit k' , 
estimated so widely different. This resemblance extejj 
even to colour in some species : it might even be 
what else, in fact, is the Canada jay than a 
titmouse ; and what the crested titmouse, but a s 
jay ? The blue colour of the typical jays predomii'^j 
moreover, in other Pari, and the P. caudatus of Eu* 1 * 
3 
