BLUE JAY. 
9 
the oaks, in search of their favourite acorns. At this season 
they are less shy than usual, and keep chattering to each other 
in a variety of strange and querulous notes. I have counted 
fifty-three, but never more, at one time ; and these generally 
following each other in straggling irregularity from One range 
of woods to another. Yet we are told by the learned Dr 
Latham, — and his statement has been copied into many 
respectable European publications, — that the blue jays of 
North America c< often unite into flocks of twenty thousand 
at least ! which, alighting on a field of ten or twelve acres, 
soon lay waste the whole.”* If this were really so, these 
birds would justly deserve the character he gives them, of 
being the most destructive species in America. But I will 
venture the assertion, that the tribe Oriolus phceniceus, or red- 
winged blackbirds, in the environs of the river Delaware alone, 
devour and destroy more Indian corn than the whole blue jays 
of North America. As to their assembling in such immense 
multitudes, it may be sufficient to observe, that a flock of blue 
jays of twenty thousand would be as extraordinary an appear- 
ance in America, as the same number of magpies or cuckoos 
would be in Britain. 
It has been frequently said, that numbers of birds are 
common to the United States and Europe ; at present, how- 
ever, I am not certain of many. Comparing the best descrip- 
tions and delineations of the European ones with those of our 
native birds, said to be of the same species, either the former 
are very erroneous, or the difference of plumage and habits in 
the latter justifies us in considering a great proportion of them 
to be really distinct species. Be this, however, as it may, the 
blue jay appears to belong exclusively to North America. I 
cannot find it mentioned by any writer or traveller among the 
birds of Guiana, Brazil, or any other part of South America. 
It is equally unknown in Africa. In Europe, and even in the 
eastern parts of Asia, it is never seen in its wild state. To 
* Synopsis of Birds, vol. i. p. 387. See also Encyclopedia Britannica, art. 
Corvus. 
