JAY (Fr. _géai_), a well-known and very beautiful European bird, the _Corvus glandarius_ of Linnaeus, the _Garrulus glandarius_ of modern ornithologists. To this species are more or less closely allied numerous birds inhabiting the Palaearctic and Indian regions, as well as the greater part of America, but not occurring in the Antilles, in the southern portion of the Neotropical Region, or in the Ethiopian or Australian. All these birds are commonly called jays, and form a group of the crows or _Corvidae_, which may fairly be considered a sub-family, _Garrulinae_. Indeed there are, or have been, systematists who would elevate the jays to the rank of a family _Garrulidae_--a proceeding which seems unnecessary. Some of them have an unquestionable resemblance to the pies, if the group now known by that name can be satisfactorily severed from the true _Corvinae_. In structure the jays are not readily differentiated from the pies; but in habit they are much more arboreal, delighting in thick coverts, seldom appearing in the open, and seeking their food on or under trees. They seem also never to walk or run when on the ground, but always to hop. The body-feathers are commonly loose and soft; and, gaily coloured as are most of the species, in few of them has the plumage the metallic glossiness it generally presents in the pies, while the proverbial beauty of the "jay's wing" is due to the vivid tints of blue--turquoise and cobalt, heightened by bars of jet-black, an indication of the same style of ornament being observable in the greater number of the other forms of the group, and in some predominating over nearly the whole surface. Of the many genera that have been proposed by ornithologists, perhaps about nine may be deemed sufficiently well established. [Illustration: FIG. 1--European Jay.]