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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



melted suet and securing it with a nail 

 to their dining table on the tree, the 

 rascals were camera captured. 



After this arrangement they seemed 

 to feed on something which they ex- 

 tracted from under the bark of nearby 

 trees, and we wondered what they 

 could be finding in the way of insects 

 in the dead of winter. One old fellow, 

 however, betrayed the secret. While 

 we were watching him through the 

 window, we saw him making rapid 

 trips to and from the table, breaking 

 off whatever sized pieces he could from 

 the cake and storing them under the 

 bark of a tree as a supply to be drawn 

 upon when conditions looked too dan- 

 gerous to approach the dining table. 

 O, if they could only know! 



The beauty of the jay is, I am sorry 

 to say, all in his dress. As a song bird, 

 he is a total failure. Fortunately, un- 

 like the donkey, oi whom some one 

 wrote, "The trouble with the donkey 

 does not lie so much in the fact that 

 he cannot sing as in his everlasting 

 conceit in thinking that he can," he 

 seems to know that there is something 

 lacking in his music, and is, as a rule, 

 silent. In addition to two distinct, stri- 

 dent calls, each consisting of a sound 

 resembling "jay,"one uttered in a long- 

 drawn out call repeated two or three 

 times, the other several times in rapid 

 succession, he has what he seems to 

 consider a song, but it is always given 

 in a subdued tone as though he feared 



some one might hear and disapprove. 



If any of the readers of The Guide: 

 to Nature have a good photograph of 

 Mr. Jays cousin, the common blue jay 

 of the east, we should be glad to cor- 

 respond with a view of exchanging for 

 any of the accompanying photographs. 



WINTER DIRDS FEEDING IN ARCADIA. 



Wandering on the Beach. 



The late Bradford Torrev, regarding 

 whose work and death we published an 

 illustrated article in our December num- 

 ber, had in the hands of the publishers 

 at the time of his death, a book entitled, 

 "Field Days in California." This has 

 just been issued. We note the following 

 description of his excitement on a beach 

 three thousand miles away, and some ot 

 the daydreams that nature suggested to 

 him. 



"At all seasons the beach is an unfail- 

 ing resource for the stroller. No matter 

 how muddy the country roads may some- 

 times be in winter in (the adhesive adobe 

 parts of them all but impassable on foot — 

 I have lost a rubber overshoe in such 

 places more than once), nor how dusty 

 the worst neglected of them may become 

 in summer, the beach is always at our 



service, since it is a wholesome quality 

 of sand to he rain-proof and sun-proof ;. 

 at the worst of times neither muddy nor 

 dusty. For myself I have had number- 

 less good hours there, and not a few that 

 might truthfully be called exciting. 



"If I had a bank full of money, I once 

 in a while find myself thinking (and per- 

 haps wiser men than I might own to the 

 same sort of foolishness), I could do 

 this or that. But, after all, what could 

 I do so very much better, school being 

 dismissed, than to go idling up and down 

 this sightly beach, looking or dreaming — 

 and enjoying myself — as the mood be- 

 falls? 



"Happy is the man ( I may have said it 

 before, but no matter), happy is the man 

 who has acquired an interest in the world' 

 out of doors. It is an investment good! 

 for both body and soul." 



