256 
CORVUS CRISTATUS. 
with all the virulency of a Billingsgate mob ; the owl, 
meanwhile, returning* every compliment with a broad 
goggling stare. The war becomes louder and louder, 
and the owl at length, forced to betake himself to flight, 
is followed by his whole train of persecutors, until 
driven beyond the boundaries of their jurisdiction. 
But the blue jay himself is not guiltless of similar 
depredations with the owl, and becomes in his turn the 
very tyrant he detested, when he sneaks through the 
woods, as he frequently does, and among the thickets 
and hedge-rows, plundering every nest he can find of 
its eggs, tearing up the callow young by piecemeal, and 
spreading alarm and sorrow around him. The cries 
of the distressed parents soon bring together a number 
of interested spectators (for birds in such circumstances 
seem truly to sympathize with each other,) and he is 
sometimes attacked with such spirit as to be under the 
necessity of making a speedy retreat. 
He will sometimes assault small birds, with the inten- 
tion of killing and devouring them ; an instance of 
which I myself once witnessed, over a piece of woods 
near the borders of Schuylkill ; where I saw him 
engaged for more than five minutes pursuing what I 
took to he a species of motacilla (m. maculosa, yellow 
rump,) wheeling, darting, and doubling in the air, and, 
at last, to my great satisfaction, got disappointed, in the 
escape of his intended prey. In times of great extremity, 
when his hoard or magazine is frozen up, buried in 
snow, or perhaps exhausted, he becomes very voracious, 
and will make a meal of whatever carrion or other 
animal substance comes in the way, and has been found 
regaling himself on the bowels of a robin ( turdus 
migratorius') in less than five minutes after it was shot. 
There are, however, individual exceptions to this 
general character for plunder and outrage, a proneness 
for which is probably often occasioned by the wants 
and irritations of necessity. A blue jay, which I have 
kept for some time, and with whom I am on terms of 
familiarity, is in reality a very notable example of mild- 
ness of disposition and sociability of manners. An 
5 
