[1] It must be observed that Bavian, &c., are mere conventional
appendices to Java.
[2] H. B. Guppy (_R. S. G. Soc. Magazine_, 1889) holds that there is
no sufficient proof of this connexion but gives interesting details
of the present movement.
[3] See G. F. Tijdeman's map of the depths of the sea in the eastern
part of the Indian archipelago in M. Weber's _Siboga Expedition_,
1903. The details of the coast forms of the island have been studied
by J. F. Snelleman and J. F. Niermeyer in a paper in the Veth
_Feestbundel_, utilizing _inter alia_ Guppy's observations.
[4] This Merapi must be carefully distinguished from Merapi the Fire
Mountain of Sumatra.
[5] R. D. M. Verbeek and R. Fennema, _Description géologique de Java
et Madoura_ (2 vols. and atlas, Amsterdam, 1896; also published in
Dutch)--a summary with map was published by Verbeek in _Peterm.
Mitt._ xliv. (1898), 24-33, pl. 3. Also K. Martin, _Die Eintheilung
der versteinerungsführenden Sedimente von Java_, Samml. Geol.
Reichsmus. Leiden, ser. i., vol. vi. (1899-1902), 135-245.
[6] On the 16th of November the sun rises at 5.32 and sets at 5.57;
on the 16th of July it rises at 6.12 and sets at 5.57. The longest
day is in December and the shortest in June, while on the other hand
the sun is highest in February and October and lowest in June and
December.
[7] S. Figei. _Regenwaarnemingen in Nederlandsch Indië_ (1902).
[8] See J. C. Konigsberger, "De vogels Java en hunne oeconomische
betukenis," _Med. int. s. Lands Plantentuin_.
[9] See especially M. Weber, _Siboga Expedition_.
[10] The _Annales de Buitenzorg_, with their _Icones bogorienses_,
are universally known; the _Teysmannia_ is named after a former
director. A history of the gardens was published by Dr Treub,
_Festboek van's Lands Plantentuin_ (1891).
[11] Bertha Hoola van Nooten published _Fleurs, fruits et feuillages
de la flore et de la pomone de l'île de Java_ in 1863, but the book
is difficult of access. Excellent views of characteristic aspects of
the vegetation will be found in Karsten and Schenck,
_Vegetationsbilder_ (1903).
[12] It is interesting to compare this with the natural
"reflorization" of Krakatoa. See Penzig, _Ann. jard. de Buitenzorg_,
vol. viii. (1902); and W. Botting in _Nature_ (1903).
[13] See Walbreken, _De Taalsvorten in het Javaansh_; and G. A.
Wilken, _Handboek voor de vergelijkende Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch
Indie_, edited by C. M. Pleyte (1893).
[14] See Van den Berg's account of the MSS. of the Batavian Society
(the Hague, 1877); and a series of papers by C. Poensen in _Meded.
van wege het Ned. Zendelinggenootschap_ (1880).
[15] Cheribon is the form employed by the Dutch: an exception to
their usual system, in which Tj- takes the place of the Ch- used in
this article.
[16] See R. Verbeek, "Liget der oudheden van Java," in _Verhand. v.
h. Bat. Gen._, xlvi., and his _Oudheidkundige kaart van Java_. R.
Sewell's "Antiquarian notes in Java," in _Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society_ (1906), give the best conspectus available for
English readers. W. B. Worsfold, _A Visit to Java_ (London, 1893),
has a good sketch of what was then known, revised by Professor W.
Rhys Davids; but whoever wishes full information must refer to Dutch
authorities. These are numerous but difficult of access.
[17] The chief authorities on Prambanan are J. W. Ijzerman,
_Beschrijving der oudheden nabij de Grens der residenties Soerakarta
en Djogjakarta_ (Batavia, 1891, with photographs and atlas); and J.
Groneman, _Tjandi Parambanan op Midden Java_; see also _Guide à
travers l'exposition des Pays-Bas_ (The Hague, 1900), No. 174, sqq.
JAVELIN, a spear, particularly one light enough to be thrown, a dart.
The javelin was often provided with a thong to help in casting (see
SPEAR). Javelin-throwing is one of the contests in the athletic section
at the international Olympic games. Formerly the sheriff of a county or
borough had a body of men armed with javelins, and known as javelin-men,
who acted as a bodyguard for the judges when they went on assize. Their
duties are now performed by the ordinary police. The word itself is an
adaptation of Fr. _javeline_. There are several words in Celtic and
Scandinavian languages and in Old English, meaning a spear or dart, that
seem to be connected with _javel_, the base form in French; thus Welsh
_gaflach_, Irish _gabhla_, O. Norwegian _gaflok_, O. E. _gafeluc_, later
in the form _gavelock_, cf. O. Norman-Fr. _gavelot_, _javelot_, Ital.
_giavelotto_. The origin seems to be Celtic, and the word is cognate
with Ir. _gafa_, a hook, fork, gaff; the root is seen in "gable" (q.v.),
and in the German _Gabel_, fork. The change in meaning from fork, forked
end of a spear, to the spear itself is obscure.
JAW (Mid. Eng. _jawe_, _jowe_ and _geowe_, O. Eng. _cheowan_, connected
with "chaw" and "chew," and in form with "jowl"), in anatomy, the term
for the upper maxillary bone, and the mandible or lower maxillary bone
of the skull; it is sometimes loosely applied to all the lower front
parts of the skull (q.v.).
JAWALIQI, ABU MANSUR MAUHUB UL-JAWALIQI (1073-1145), Arabian grammarian,
was born at Bagdad, where he studied philology under Tibrizi and became
famous for his handwriting. In his later years he acted as imam to the
caliph Moqtafi. His chief work is the _Kitab ul-Mu'arrab_, or
"Explanation of Foreign Words used in Arabic."
The text was edited from an incomplete manuscript by E. Sachau
(Leipzig, 1867). Many of the lacunae in this have been supplied from
another manuscript by W. Spitta in the _Journal of the German Oriental
Society_, xxxiii. 208 sqq. Another work, written as a supplement to
the _Durrat ul-Ghawwas_ of Hariri (q.v.), has been published as "Le
Livre des locutions vicieuses," by H. Derenbourg in _Morgenländische
Forschungen_ (Leipzig, 1875), pp. 107-166. (G. W. T.)
JAWHAR, a native state of India, in the Konkan division of Bombay,
situated among the lower ranges of the western Ghats. Area 310 sq. m.
Pop. (1901), 47,538. The estimated revenue is £11,000; there is no
tribute. The chief, who is a Koli by caste, traces back his descent to
1343. The leading exports are teak and rice. The principal village is
that of Jawhar (pop. 3567).
JAWORÓW, a town in Galicia, Austria, 30 m. W. of Lemberg. Pop. (1900),
10,090. It has a pottery, a brewery, a distillery and some trade in
agricultural produce. Not far from it is the watering-place of Szkto
with sulphur springs. The town was a favourite residence of John
Sobieski, who there received the congratulations of the pope and the
Venetian republic on his success against the Turks at Vienna (1683). At
Jaworów Peter the Great was betrothed to Catherine I.
JAY, JOHN (1745-1829), American statesman, the descendant of a Huguenot
family, and son of Peter Jay, a successful New York merchant, was born
in New York City on the 12th of December 1745. On graduating at King's
College (now Columbia University) in 1764, Jay entered the office of
Benjamin Kissam, an eminent New York lawyer. In 1768 he was admitted to
the bar, and rapidly acquired a lucrative practice. In 1774 he married
Sarah, youngest daughter of William Livingston, and was thus brought
into close relations with one of the most influential families in New
York. Like many other able young lawyers, Jay took an active part in the
proceedings that resulted in the independence of the United States,
identifying himself with the conservative element in the Whig or patriot
party. He was sent as a delegate from New York City to the Continental
Congress at Philadelphia in September 1774, and though almost the
youngest member, was entrusted with drawing up the address to the people
of Great Britain. Of the second congress, also, which met at
Philadelphia on the 10th of May 1775, Jay was a member; and on its
behalf he prepared an address to the people of Canada and an address to
the people of Jamaica and Ireland. In April 1776, while still retaining
his seat in the Continental Congress, Jay was chosen as a member of the
third provincial congress of New York; and his consequent absence from
Philadelphia deprived him of the honour of affixing his signature to the
Declaration of Independence. As a member of the fourth provincial
congress he drafted a resolution by which the delegates of New York in
the Continental Congress were authorized to sign the Declaration of
Independence. In 1777 he was chairman of the committee of the convention
which drafted the first New York state constitution. After acting for
some time as one of the council of safety (which administered the state
government until the new constitution came into effect), he was made
chief justice of New York state, in September 1777. A clause in the
state constitution prohibited any justice of the Supreme Court from
holding any other post save that of delegate to Congress on a "special
occasion," but in November 1778 the legislature pronounced the
secession of what is now the state of Vermont from the jurisdiction of
New Hampshire and New York to be such an occasion, and sent Jay to
Congress charged with the duty of securing a settlement of the
territorial claims of his state. He took his seat in congress on the 7th
of December, and on the 10th was chosen president in succession to Henry
Laurens.
On the 27th of September 1779 Jay was appointed minister plenipotentiary
to negotiate a treaty between Spain and the United States. He was
instructed to endeavour to bring Spain into the treaty already existing
between France and the United States by a guarantee that Spain should
have the Floridas in case of a successful issue of the war against Great
Britain, reserving, however, to the United States the free navigation of
the Mississippi. He was also to solicit a subsidy in consideration of
the guarantee, and a loan of five million dollars. His task was one of
extreme difficulty. Although Spain had joined France in the war against
Great Britain, she feared to imperil her own colonial interests by
directly encouraging and aiding the former British colonies in their
revolt against their mother country, and she had refused to recognize
the United States as an independent power. Jay landed at Cadiz on the
22nd of January 1780, but was told that he could not be received in a
formally diplomatic character. In May the king's minister, Count de
Florida Bianca, intimated to him that the one obstacle to a treaty was
the question of the free navigation of the Mississippi, and for months
following this interview the policy of the court was clearly one of
delay. In February 1781 Congress instructed Jay that he might make
concessions regarding the navigation of the Mississippi, if necessary;
but further delays were interposed, the news of the surrender of
Yorktown arrived, and Jay decided that any sacrifice to obtain a treaty
was no longer advisable. His efforts to procure a loan were not much
more successful, and he was seriously embarrassed by the action of
Congress in drawing bills upon him for large sums. Although by
importuning the Spanish minister, and by pledging his personal
responsibility, Jay was able to meet some of the bills, he was at last
forced to protest others; and the credit of the United States was saved
only by a timely subsidy from France.
In 1781 Jay was commissioned to act with Franklin, John Adams, Jefferson
and Henry Laurens in negotiating a peace with Great Britain. He arrived
in Paris on the 23rd of June 1782, and jointly with Franklin had
proceeded far with the negotiations when Adams arrived late in October.
The instructions of the American negotiators were as follows:--
"You are to make the most candid and confidential communications upon
all subjects to the ministers of our generous ally, the king of
France; to undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce
without their knowledge and concurrence; and ultimately to govern
yourselves by their advice and opinion, endeavouring in your whole
conduct to make them sensible how much we rely on his majesty's
influence for effectual support in every thing that may be necessary
to the present security, or future prosperity, of the United States of
America."
Jay, however, in a letter written to the president of Congress from
Spain, had expressed in strong terms his disapproval of such dependence
upon France, and, on arriving in Paris, he demanded that Great Britain
should treat with his country on an equal footing by first recognizing
its independence, although the French minister, Count de Vergennes,
contended that an acknowledgment of independence as an effect of the
treaty was as much as could reasonably be expected. Finally, owing
largely to Jay, who suspected the good faith of France, the American
negotiators decided to treat independently with Great Britain. The
provisional articles, which were so favourable to the United States as
to be a great surprise to the courts of France and Spain, were signed on
the 30th of November 1782, and were adopted with no important change as
the final treaty on the 3rd of September 1783.
On the 24th of July 1784 Jay landed in New York, where he was presented
with the freedom of the city and elected a delegate to Congress. On the
7th of May Congress had already chosen him to be secretary for foreign
affairs, and in December Jay resigned his seat in Congress and accepted
the secretaryship. He continued to act in this capacity until 1790, when
Jefferson became secretary of state under the new constitution. In the
question of this constitution Jay had taken a keen interest, and as an
advocate of its ratification he wrote over the name "Publius," five
(Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 64) of the famous series of papers known
collectively as the _Federalist_ (see HAMILTON, ALEXANDER). He published
anonymously (though without succeeding in concealing the authorship) _An
Address to the People of New York_, in vindication of the constitution;
and in the state convention at Poughkeepsie he ably seconded Hamilton in
securing its ratification by New York. In making his first appointments
to federal offices President Washington asked Jay to take his choice;
Jay chose that of chief justice of the Supreme Court, and held this
position from September 1789 to June 1795. The most famous case that
came before him was that of _Chisolm_ v. _Georgia_, in which the
question was, Can a state be sued by a citizen of another state? Georgia
argued that it could not be so sued, on the ground that it was a
sovereign state, but Jay decided against Georgia, on the ground that
sovereignty in America resided with the people. This decision led to the
adoption of the eleventh amendment to the federal constitution, which
provides that no suit may be brought in the federal courts against any
state by a citizen of another state or by a citizen or subject of any
foreign state. In 1792 Jay consented to stand for the governorship of
New York State, but a partisan returning-board found the returns of
three counties technically defective, and though Jay had received an
actual majority of votes, his opponent, George Clinton, was declared
elected.
Ever since the War of Independence there had been friction between Great
Britain and the United States. To the grievances of the United States,
consisting principally of Great Britain's refusal to withdraw its troops
from the forts on the north-western frontier, as was required by the
peace treaty of 1783, her refusal to make compensation for negroes
carried away by the British army at the close of the War of Independence,
her restrictions on American commerce, and her refusal to enter into any
commercial treaty with the United States, were added, after war broke out
between France and Great Britain in 1793, the anti-neutral naval policy
according to which British naval vessels were authorized to search
American merchantmen and impress American seamen, provisions were treated
as contraband of war, and American vessels were seized for no other
reason than that they had on board goods which were the property of the
enemy or were bound for a port which though not actually blockaded was
declared to be blockaded. The anti-British feeling in the House of
Representatives became so strong that on the 7th of April 1794 a
resolution was introduced to prohibit commercial intercourse between the
United States and Great Britain until the north-western posts should be
evacuated and Great Britain's anti-neutral naval policy should be
abandoned. Thereupon Washington, fearing that war might result, appointed
Jay minister extraordinary to Great Britain to negotiate a new treaty,
and the Senate confirmed the appointment by a vote of 18 to 8, although
the non-intercourse resolution which came from the house a few days later
was defeated in the senate only by the casting vote of Vice-President
John Adams. Jay landed at Falmouth in June 1794, signed a treaty with
Lord Grenville on the 19th of November, and disembarked again at New York
on the 28th of May 1795. The treaty, known in history as Jay's Treaty,
provided that the north-western posts should be evacuated by the 1st of
June 1796, that commissioners should be appointed to settle the
north-east and the north-west boundaries, and that the British claims for
British debts as well as the American claims for compensation for illegal
seizures should be referred to commissioners. More than one-half of the
clauses in the treaty related to commerce, and although they contained
rather small concessions to the United States, they were about as much as
could reasonably have been expected in the circumstances. One clause, the
operation of which was limited to two years from the close of the
existing war, provided that American vessels not exceeding 70 tons burden
might trade with the West Indies, but should carry only American
products there and take away to American ports only West Indian products;
moreover, the United States was to export in American vessels no
molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa or cotton to any part of the world. Jay
consented to this prohibition under the impression that the articles
named were peculiarly the products of the West Indies, not being aware
that cotton was rapidly becoming an important export from the southern
states. The operation of the other commercial clauses was limited to
twelve years. By them the United States was granted limited privileges of
trade with the British East Indies; some provisions were made for
reciprocal freedom of trade between the United States and the British
dominions in Europe; some articles were specified under the head of
"contraband of war"; it was agreed that whenever provisions were seized
as contraband they should be paid for, and that in cases of the capture
of a vessel carrying contraband goods such goods only and not the whole
cargo should be seized; it was also agreed that no vessel should be
seized merely because it was bound for a blockaded port, unless it
attempted to enter the port after receiving notice of the blockade. The
treaty was laid before the Senate on the 8th of June 1795, and, with the
exception of the clause relating to trade with the West Indies, was
ratified on the 24th by a vote of 20 to 10. As yet the public was
ignorant of its contents, and although the Senate had enjoined secrecy on
its members even after the treaty had been ratified, Senator Mason of
Virginia gave out a copy for publication only a few days later. The
Republican party, strongly sympathizing with France and strongly
disliking Great Britain, had been opposed to Jay's mission, and had
denounced Jay as a traitor and guillotined him in effigy when they heard
that he was actually negotiating. The publication of the treaty only
added to their fury. They filled newspapers with articles denouncing it,
wrote virulent pamphlets against it, and burned Jay in effigy. The
British flag was insulted. Hamilton was stoned at a public meeting in New
York while speaking in defence of the treaty, and Washington was grossly
abused for signing it. In the House of Representatives the Republicans
endeavoured to prevent the execution of the treaty by refusing the
necessary appropriations, and a vote (29th of April, 1795) on a
resolution that it ought to be carried into effect stood 49 to 49; but on
the next day the opposition was defeated by a vote of 51 to 48. Once in
operation, the treaty grew in favour. Two days before landing on his
return from the English mission, Jay had been elected governor of New
York state; notwithstanding his temporary unpopularity, he was re-elected
in April 1798. With the close of this second term of office in 1801, he
ended his public career. Although not yet fifty-seven years old, he
refused all offers of office and retiring to his estate near Bedford in
Westchester county, N.Y., spent the rest of his life in rarely
interrupted seclusion. In politics he was throughout inclined toward
Conservatism, and after the rise of parties under the federal government
he stood with Alexander Hamilton and John Adams as one of the foremost
leaders of the Federalist party, as opposed to the Republicans or
Democratic-Republicans. From 1821 until 1828 he was president of the
American Bible Society. He died on the 17th of May 1829. The purity and
integrity of his life are commemorated in a sentence by Daniel Webster:
"When the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay, it
touched nothing less spotless than itself."
See _The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay_ (4 vols., New
York, 1890-1893), edited by H. P. Johnston; William Jay, _Life of John
Jay with Selections from his Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers_
(2 vols., New York, 1833); William Whitelocke, _Life and Times of John
Jay_ (New York, 1887); and George Pellew, _John Jay_ (Boston, 1890),
in the "American Statesmen Series."
John Jay's son, WILLIAM JAY (1789-1858), was born in New York City on
the 16th of June 1789, graduated from Yale in 1807, and soon afterwards
assumed the management of his father's large estate in Westchester
county, N.Y. He was actively interested in peace, temperance and
anti-slavery movements. He took a prominent part in 1816 in founding
the American Bible Society; was a judge of Westchester county from 1818
to 1843, when he was removed from office by the party in power in New
York, which hoped, by sacrificing an anti-slavery judge, to gain
additional strength in the southern states; joined the American
anti-slavery society in 1834, and held several important offices in this
organization. In 1840, however, when it began to advocate measures which
he deemed too radical, he withdrew his membership, but with his pen he
continued his labours on behalf of the slave, urging emancipation in the
district of Columbia and the exclusion of slavery from the Territories,
though deprecating any attempt to interfere with slavery in the states.
He was a member of the American peace society and was its president for
several years. His pamphlet, _War and Peace: the Evils of the First with
a Plan for Securing the Last_, advocating international arbitration, was
published by the English Peace Society in 1842, and is said to have
contributed to the promulgation, by the powers signing the Treaty of
Paris in 1856, of a protocol expressing the wish that nations, before
resorting to arms, should have recourse to the good offices of a
friendly power. Among William Jay's other writings, the most important
are _The Life of John Jay_ (2 vols., 1833) and a _Review of the Causes
and Consequences of the Mexican War_ (1849). He died at Bedford on the
14th of October 1858.
See Bayard Tuckerman, _William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for
the Abolition of Slavery_ (New York, 1893).
William Jay's son, JOHN JAY (1817-1894), also took an active part in the
anti-slavery movement. He was a prominent member of the free soil party,
and was one of the organizers of the Republican party in New York. He
was United States minister to Austria-Hungary in 1869-1875, and was a
member, and for a time president, of the New York civil service
commission appointed by Governor Cleveland in 1883.
JAY, WILLIAM (1769-1853), English Nonconformist divine, was born at
Tisbury in Wiltshire on the 6th of May 1769. He adopted his father's
trade of stone-mason, but gave it up in 1785 in order to enter the Rev.
Cornelius Winter's school at Marlborough. During the three years that
Jay spent there, his preaching powers were rapidly developed. Before he
was twenty-one he had preached nearly a thousand times, and in 1788 he
had for a while occupied Rowland Hill's pulpit in London. Wishing to
continue his reading he accepted the humble pastorate of Christian
Malford, near Chippenham, where he remained about two years. After one
year at Hope chapel, Clifton, he was called to the ministry of Argyle
Independent chapel in Bath; and on the 30th of January 1791 he began the
work of his life there, attracting hearers of every religious
denomination and of every rank, and winning for himself a wide
reputation as a brilliant pulpit orator, an earnest religious author,
and a friendly counsellor. Sheridan declared him to be the most manly
orator he had ever heard. A long and honourable connexion of sixty-two
years came to an end in January 1853, and he died on the 27th of
December following.
The best-known of Jay's works are his _Morning and Evening Exercises_:
_The Christian contemplated_: _The Domestic Minister's Assistant_; and
his _Discourses_. He also wrote a _Life of Rev. Cornelius Winter_, and
_Memoirs of Rev. John Clarke_. An edition of Jay's _Works_ in 12
vols., 8vo, revised by himself, was issued in 1842-1844, and again in
1856. A new edition, in 8 vols., 8vo, was published in 1876. See
_Autobiography_ (1854); S. Wilson's _Memoir of Jay_ (1854); S. Newth
in _Pulpit Memorials_ (1878).
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.]
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.
Though the common jay of Europe inhabits nearly the whole of this
quarter of the globe south of 64° N. lat., its territory in the east of
Russia is also occupied by _G. brandti_, a kindred form, which replaces
it on the other side of the Ural, and ranges thence across Siberia to
Japan; and again on the lower Danube and thence to Constantinople the
nearly allied _G. krynicki_ (which alone is found in southern Russia,
Caucasia and Asia Minor) shares its haunts with it.[1] It also crosses
the Mediterranean to Algeria and Morocco; but there, as in southern
Spain, it is probably but a winter immigrant. The three forms just named
have the widest range of any of the genus. Next to them come _G.
atricapillus_, reaching from Syria to Baluchistan, _G. japonicus_, the
ordinary jay of southern Japan, and _G. sinensis_, the Chinese bird.
Other forms have a much more limited area, as _G. cervicalis_, the local
and resident jay of Algeria, _G. hyrcanus_, found on the southern shores
of the Caspian Sea, and _G. taevanus_, confined to the island of
Formosa. The most aberrant of the true jays is _G. lidthi_, a very rare
species, which seems to come from some part of Japan (_vide_ Salvadori,
_Atti Accad. Torino_, vii. 474), though its exact locality is not known.
Leaving the true jays of the genus _Garrulus_, it is expedient next to
consider those of a group named, in 1831, _Perisoreus_ by Prince C. L.
Bonaparte (_Saggio_, &c., _Anim. Vertebrati_, p. 43) and _Dysornithia_
by Swainson (_F. B.-Americana_, ii. 495).[2]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--American Blue Jay.]
This group contains two species--one the Lanius infaustus of Linnaeus
and the Siberian jay of English writers, which ranges throughout the
pine-forests of the north of Europe and Asia, and the second the _Corvus
canadensis_ of the same author, or Canada jay, occupying a similar
station in America. The so-called Siberian jay is one of the most
entertaining birds in the world. Its versatile cries and actions, as
seen and heard by those who penetrate the solitude of the northern
forests it inhabits, can never be forgotten by one who has had
experience of them, any more than the pleasing sight of its
rust-coloured tail, which an occasional gleam of sunshine will light up
into a brilliancy quite unexpected by those who have only surveyed the
bird's otherwise gloomy appearance in the glass-case of a museum. It
seems scarcely to know fear, obtruding itself on the notice of any
traveller who invades its haunts, and, should he halt, making itself at
once a denizen of his bivouac. In confinement it speedily becomes
friendly, but suitable food for it is not easily found. Linnaeus seems
to have been under a misapprehension when he applied to it the trivial
epithet it bears; for by none of his countrymen is it deemed an unlucky
bird, but rather the reverse. In fact, no one can listen to the cheery
sound of its ordinary calls with any but a hopeful feeling. The Canada
jay, or "whisky-jack" (the corruption probably of a Cree name), seems to
be of a similar nature, but it presents a still more sombre coloration,
its nestling plumage,[3] indeed, being thoroughly corvine in appearance
and suggestive of its being a pristine form.
As though to make amends for the dull plumage of the species last
mentioned, North America offers some of the most brilliantly coloured
of the sub-family, and the common blue jay[4] of Canada and the eastern
states of the Union, _Cyanurus cristatus_ (fig. 2), is one of the most
conspicuous birds of the Transatlantic woods. The account of its habits
by Alexander Wilson is known to every student of ornithology, and
Wilson's followers have had little to do but supplement his history with
unimportant details. In this bird and its many allied forms, coloration,
though almost confined to various tints of blue, seems to reach its
climax, but want of space forbids more particular notice of them, or of
the members of the other genera _Cyanocitta_, _Cyanocorax_, _Xanthura_,
_Psilorhinus_, and more, which inhabit various parts of the Western
continent. It remains, however, to mention the genus Cissa, including
many beautiful forms belonging to the Indian region, and among them the
_C. speciosa_ and _C. sinensis_, so often represented in Oriental
drawings, though doubts may be expressed whether these birds are not
more nearly related to the pies than to the jays. (A. N.)