The ordinary European jay, _Garrulus glandarius_ (fig. 1), has suffered so much persecution in the British Islands as to have become in many districts a rare bird. In Ireland it seems now to be indigenous to the southern half of the island only; in England generally, it is far less numerous than formerly; and in Scotland its numbers have decreased with still greater rapidity. There is little doubt that it would have been exterminated but for its stock being supplied in autumn by immigration, and for its shy and wary behaviour, especially at the breeding-season, when it becomes almost wholly mute, and thereby often escapes detection. No truthful man, however much he may love the bird, will gainsay the depredations on fruit and eggs that it at times commits; but the gardeners and gamekeepers of Britain, instead of taking a few simple steps to guard their charge from injury, deliberately adopt methods of wholesale destruction--methods that in the case of this species are only too easy and too effectual--by proffering temptation to trespass which it is not in jay-nature to resist, and accordingly the bird runs great chance of total extirpation. Notwithstanding the war carried on against the jay, its varied cries and active gesticulations show it to be a sprightly bird, and at a distance that renders its beauty-spots invisible, it is yet rendered conspicuous by its cinnamon-coloured body and pure white tail-coverts, which contrast with the deep black and rich chestnut that otherwise mark its plumage, and even the young at once assume a dress closely resembling that of the adult. The nest, generally concealed in a leafy tree or bush, is carefully built, with a lining formed of fine roots neatly interwoven. Herein from four to seven eggs, of a greenish-white closely freckled, so as to seem suffused with light olive, are laid in March or April, and the young on quitting it accompany their parents for some weeks.