Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/50

 sea shore to the mountainous districts, it seems more abundant in the latter. The nest is composed of twigs and other coarse materials, lined with fibrous roots. The eggs are four or five, of a dull olive colour, spotted with brown.

The Blue Jay is truly omnivorous, feeding indiscriminately on all sorts of flesh, seeds, and insects. He is more tyrannical than brave, and, like most boasters, domineers over the feeble, dreads the strong, and flies even from his equals. In many cases in fact, he is a downright coward. The Cardinal Grosbeak will challenge him, and beat him off the ground. The Red Thrush, the Mocking Bird, and many others, although inferior in strength, never allow him to approach their nest with impunity; and the Jay, to be even with them, creeps silently to it in their absence, and devours their eggs and young whenever he finds an opportunity. I have seen one go its round from 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 disappointment 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 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 with 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