THE BLUE JAY. 
113 
one nest to another every day, and suck the newly laid eggs of the different 
birds in the neighbourhood, with as much regularity and composure as a 
physician would call on his patients. I have also witnessed the sad disap- 
pointment it experienced, when, on returning to its own home, it found its 
mate in the jaws of a snake, the nest upset, and the eggs all gone. I have 
thought more than once on such occasions that, like all great culprits, when 
brought to a sense of their enormities, it evinced a strong feeling of 
remorse. While at Charleston, in November 1833, Dr. Wilson of that 
city told me that on opening a division of his aviary, a Mocking-bird that 
he had kept for three years, flew at another and killed it, after which it 
destroyed several Blue Jays, which he had been keeping for me some months 
in an adjoining compartment. 
The Blue Jay seeks for its food with great diligence at all times, but 
more especially during the period of its migration. At such a time, wherever 
there are chinquapins, wild chestnuts, acorns, or grapes, flocks will be seen 
to alight on the topmost branches of these trees, disperse, and engage witli 
great vigour in detaching the fruit. Those that fall are picked up from the 
ground, and carried into a chink in the bark, the splinters of a fence rail, 
or firmly held under foot on a branch, and hammered with the bill until the 
kernel be procured. 
As if' for the purpose of gleaning the country in this manner, the Blue 
Jay migrates from one part to another during the day only. A person 
travelling or hunting by night, may now and then disturb the repose of a 
Jay, which in its terror sounds an alarm that is instantly responded to by all 
its surrounding travelling companions, and their multiplied cries make the 
woods resound far and near. While migrating, they seldom fly to any great 
distance at a time without alighting, for like true rangers they ransack and 
minutely inspect every portion of the woods, the fields, the orchards, and 
even the gardens of the farmers and planters. Always exceedingly garru- 
lous, they may easily be followed to any distance, and the more they are 
chased the more noisy do they become, unless a Hawk happen to pass sud- 
denly near them, when they are instantly struck dumb, and, as if ever con- 
scious of deserving punishment, either remain motionless for awhile, or 
sneak off silently into the closest thickets, where they remain concealed as 
long as their dangerous enemy is near. 
During the winter months they collect in large numbers about the planta- 
tions of the Southern States, approach the houses and barns, attend the 
feeding of the poultry, as well as of the cattle and horses in their separate 
pens, in company with the Cardinal Grosbeak, the Towhe Bunting, the Cow 
Bunting, the Starlings and Grakles, pick up every grain of loose corn they 
can find, search amid the droppings of horses along the roads, and enter the 
Vol. IY. 16 
