FLORIDA JAY. 
421 
which are too thickly interwoven with briers and saw-palmet- 
tos, to be traversed ; and unless the birds are killed on the spot, 
which they seldom are when struck with fine shot, it is next 
to impossible to come at them in such situations. This species, 
like its relatives, is omnivorous, but being inferior in strength, 
does not attack large animals. The stomachs of our specimens 
contained small fragments of shells, sand, and half-digested 
seeds. 
The blue jays, though also found in the same localities, are 
not so numerous ; they keep more in the woods,' and their note 
is louder. 
The Florida jay is eleven and a half inches long, and nearly 
fourteen in extent ; the bill is one inch and a quarter long, 
hardly notched, and of a black colour, lighter at tip ; the in- 
cumbent setaceous feathers of the base are greyish blue, mixed 
with a few blackish bristles ; the irides are hazel brown ; the 
head and neck above, and on the sides, together with the 
wings and tail, are bright azure ; the front, and a line over 
the eye, bluish white ; the lores and cheeks of a duller blue, 
somewhat mixed with black; the back is yellowish brown, 
somewhat mixed with blue on the rump, the upper tail-coverts 
being bright azure ; the inner vanes and tips of the quills are 
dusky, their shafts, as well as those of the tail-feathers, being 
black. All the lower parts are of a dirty pale yellowish grey, 
more intense on the belly, and paler on the throat, which is 
faintly streaked with cinereous, owing to the base of the plu- 
mage appearing from underneath, its feathers having blackish, 
bristly shafts, some of them without webs. From the cheeks 
and sides of the neck, the blue colour passes down along the 
breast, and forms a somewhat obscure collar ; the under wing 
and under tail-coverts are strongly tinged with blue, which 
colour is also slightly apparent on the femorals ; the inferior 
surface of the wings and tail is dark silvery grey ; the base of 
the plumage is plumbeous ash, blackish on the head ; the wings 
are four and a half inches long, and reach, when closed, hardly 
beyond the coverts of the tail, which is five and a half inches 
