s though
they might be playing "Follow the man from Cook's." The black-throated
jay is noisy even for a sociable bird. The sound which it seems to
produce more often than any other is very like the harsh anger-cry
of the common myna. Many Himalayan birds have rather discordant notes,
and in this respect these mountains do not compare favourably with
the Nilgiris, where the blithe notes of the bulbuls are very pleasing
to the ear.

Jays are by nature bold birds. They are inclined to be timid in England,
because they are so much persecuted by the game-keeper. In the
Himalayas they are as bold as the crow. It is not uncommon to see
two or three jays hopping about outside a kitchen picking up the scraps
pitched out by the cook. Sometimes two jays make a dash at the same
morsel. Then a tiff ensues, but it is mostly made up of menacing
screeches. One bird bears away the coveted morsel, swearing lustily,
and the unsuccessful claimant lets him go in peace. When a jay comes
upon a morsel of food too large to be swallowed whole, it flies with
it to a tree and holds it under one foot and tears it up with its
beak. This is a characteristically corvine habit. The black-throated
jay is an exceedingly restless bird; it is always on the move. Like
its English cousin, it is not a bird of very powerful flight. As
Gilbert White says: "Magpies and jays flutter with powerless wings,
and make no despatch." In the Himalayas there is no necessity for
it to make much despatch; it rarely has to cover any distance on the
wing. When it does fly a dozen yards or so, its passage is marked
by much noisy flapping of the pinions.

The nutcrackers can scarcely be numbered among the common birds, but
are sometimes seen in our hill stations, and, such is the "cussedness"
of birds that if I omit to notice the nutcrackers several are certain
to show themselves to many of those who read these lines. A
chocolate-brown bird, bigger than a crow, and spotted and barred with
white all over, can be nothing other than one of the Himalayan
nutcrackers. It may be the Himalayan species (_Nucifraga hemispila_),
or the larger spotted nutcracker (_N. multipunctata_).

The members of the crow family which I have attempted to describe
above are all large birds, birds bigger than a crow. It now behoves
us to consider the smaller members of the corvine clan.

The tits form a sub-family of the crows. Now at first sight the crow
and the tit seem to have but little in comm