We now come to the jays. That brilliant study in light and dark blue, so common in the plains, which we call the blue-jay, does not occur in the Himalayas; nor is it a jay at all: its proper name is the Indian roller (_Coracias indica_). It is in no way connected with the jay tribe, being not even a passerine bird. We know this because of the arrangement of its deep plantar tendons, because its palate is desmognathous instead of aegithognathous, because--but I think I will not proceed further with these reasons; if I do, this article will resemble a letter written by the conscientious undergraduate who used to copy into each of his epistles to his mother, a page of _A Complete Guide to the Town of Cambridge_. The fond mother doubtless found her son's letters very instructive, but they were not exactly what she wanted. Let it suffice that the familiar bird with wings of two shades of blue is not a jay, nor even one of the Corviniae, but a blood relation of the kingfishers and bee-eaters. Two true jays, however, are common in the Western Himalayas. These are known to science as the Himalayan jay (_Garrulus bispecularis_) and the black-throated jay (_G. lanceolatus_). The former is a fawn-coloured bird, with a black moustachial streak. As birds do not usually indulge in moustaches, this streak renders the bird an easy one to identify. The tail is black, and the wing has the characteristic blue band with narrow black cross-bars. This species goes about in large noisy flocks. Once at Naini Tal I came upon a flock which cannot have numbered fewer than forty individuals. The handsome black-throated jay is a bird that must be familiar to every one who visits a Himalayan hill station with his eyes open. Nevertheless no one seems to have taken the trouble to write about it. Those who have compiled lists of birds usually dismiss it in their notes with such adjectives as "abundant," and "very common." It is remarkable that many popular writers should have discoursed upon the feathered folk of the plains, while few have devoted themselves to the interesting birds of the hills. There seem to be two reasons for this neglect of the latter. Firstly, it is only the favoured few to whom it is given to spend more than ten days at a time in the cool heights; most of us have to toil in the hot plains. Secondly, the thick foliage of the mountain-side makes bird-watching a somewhat difficult operation. The observer frequently catches sight of an interesting-looking bird, only to see it disappear among the foliage before he has had time even to identify it.