The rows of cottages of which I have spoken were in one sense a detriment to the beach; but on the whole, and in their present deserted condition, I found them an advantage.  It was easy enough to walk away from them, if a man wanted the feeling of utter solitude (the beach extends from Matanzas Inlet to Mosquito Inlet, thirty-five miles, more or less); while at other times they not only furnished shadow and a seat, but, with the paths and little clearings behind them, were an attraction to many birds.  Here I found my first Florida jays.  They sat on the chimney-tops and ridgepoles, and I was rejoiced to discover that these unique and interesting creatures, one of the special objects of my journey South, were not only common, but to an extraordinary degree approachable.  Their extreme confidence in man is one of their oddest characteristics.  I heard from more than one person how easily and “in almost no time” they could be tamed, if indeed they needed taming.  A resident of Hawks Park told me that they used to come into his house and stand upon the corners of the dinner table waiting for their share of the meal.  When he was hoeing in the garden, they would perch on his hat, and stay there by the hour, unless he drove them off.  He never did anything to tame them except to treat them kindly.  When a brood was old enough to leave the nest, the parents brought the youngsters up to the doorstep as a matter of course.

The Florida jay, a bird of the scrub, is not to be confounded with the Florida blue jay (a smaller and less conspicuously crested duplicate of our common Northern bird), to which it bears little resemblance either in personal appearance or in voice.  Seen from behind, its aspect is peculiarly striking; the head, wings, rump, and tail being dark blue, with an almost rectangular patch of gray set in the midst.  Its beak is very stout, and its tail very long; and though it would attract attention anywhere, it is hardly to be called handsome or graceful.  Its notes—­such of them as I heard, that is—­are mostly guttural, with little or nothing of the screaming quality which distinguishes the blue jay’s voice.  To my ear they were often suggestive of the Northern shrike.

On the 23d of February I was standing on the rear piazza of one of the cottages, when a jay flew into the oak and palmetto scrub close by.  A second glance, and I saw that she was busy upon a nest.  When she had gone, I moved nearer, and waited.  She did not return, and I descended the steps and went to the edge of the thicket to inspect her work:  a bulky affair,—­nearly done, I thought,—­loosely constructed of pretty large twigs.  I had barely returned to the veranda before the bird appeared again.  This time I was in a position to look squarely in upon her.  She had some difficulty in edging her way through the dense bushes with a long, branching stick in her bill; but she accomplished the feat, fitted the new material into its place, readjusted the other