26 APRIL 1946, Page 14

Unusual Enemies In a garden provided with trees and bushes

and water, and therefore very popular with birds (and unfortunately with grey squirrels), there broke out one evening a tumult of harsh sounds.. The voices were the voices of jays, of which no fewer than three pairs are building nests within the pale. They had come into conflict with a little owl. What was the cause of the melee was not surely discovered, but it seemed by the place of the fight that probably the owl had shown too great a curiosity about the nest of one pair of jays. That either bird would attack the other except in defence of its house is extremely unlikely. Neither bird is popular. For several years it has proved quite impossible to harvest green peas, a vegetable to which jays are peculiarly partial. They did not desist last year, even though three were caught in nets stretched over a row of marrow-fats. The garden in question is almost suburban, and jays, like carrion crows, have developed a taste for suburban life, to the multiplication of their species.