INQUISITIVENESS OF THE JAY. 
big foolish-looking eyes, while they heap abuse and accusations 
on his head. The bird-catcher takes advantage of this, and 
makes it a means of turning the tables on the jay to his own 
profit. He climbs a tree with a stuffed owl and some limed 
twigs, perches the owl on a branch, and fastens the twigs all 
about it. Then he hides in a hole at the foot of the tree, 
and with the aid of a whistle exactly imitates the “ whoo 
whoo ” of the owl. The jays hear the notes, and from every 
direction come to assault their enemy. They perch on the 
twigs, where they stick, and while engaged in bullying and 
threatening the stuffed owl, the bird-catcher climbs the tree 
and captures them with the greatest ease. As the jay exhibits 
the same antipathy to the weasel-tribe, a white ferret will 
answer your purpose equally well. Moreover, the jay’s passion 
for the eggs of other birds — more particularly those of the - 
pheasant and partridge — may be taken advantage of in cap- 
turing it, and it will generally be enticed by an egg or two 
placed in a nest as bait. The advantage of this mode is, that 
at any period of the year it will answer equally well ; for the 
jay does not suspect the trap, even in the depth of winter, 
when of course such eggs are unattainable, of which fact the 
bird seems perfectly ignorant. 
From his inquisitiveness, the jay is a terrible nuisance to 
the sportsman ; for on the sight of a man with a gun or dogs, 
he will set up a loud screech, at once proclaiming to the 
whole of the birds in the neighbourhood that danger is abroad. 
Indeed, it would almost seem an instinctive quality of the bird, 
for the conduct of the English jay meets with a curious coinci- 
dence in that of his American brother. Sir Francis Head, 
who travelled in the most wild and unfrequented parts of 
North America, where in all probability a gun had never 
been used before, and therefore the bird could not have learnt 
the proper distance to keep without the range of a shot, yet 
found the jay as inquisitive and cautious as if it were quite a 
common occurrence to see a sportsman, and to know how to 
thwart his views ; for the birds kept up a continual chattering, 
and flew from tree to tree, arousing all its neighbours. In 
this manner the deer-hunter is often baulked of his game, and 
some of the hunters have taken, in consequence, a great 
dislike to the jay, and whenever they see it, they shoot it. 
Its nest does not rank in a high order of bird-architecture, 
but is very roughly made. It is generally built in some tall 
tree, such as the cedar, the inside of the nest being lined with 
