So AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



come they seem to hold conventions on higher land. The most 

 of their notes are harsh, hut if you can get near one of those 

 conventions, once in a while you will hear one of the most 

 hquid, sweetest notes there is in the bird world. 



Now here is a bird which I hardly know whether to call a 

 fairy or a hobgoblin, — the bluejay. You know we have this 

 bird the year round. Well, the bluejay is generally considered 

 a hobgoblin. People say that he is very cruel and that he kills 

 other little birds, but those who have studied him the most say 

 that he is a good friend to us because he eats a great many of 

 the injurious insects. A few years ago I was having a lesson 

 on birds with a little nature class and I told the boys to find 

 out what they could before the next lesson about the bluejay, 

 and one boy told me that there were some bluejays in his 

 father's orchard and his father said that they were eating buds 

 from the apple trees and told him to take his gun and go out 

 and shoot the jays. Well, he took the gim and went out there, 

 but he sat down to study the bird and get near to it — that was 

 several years ago when we had a great many tent caterpillars — 

 and he found the bird was twisting off the eggs of the tent 

 caterpillar lairl in clusters on the little branches The bluejay 

 was making a good square dinner out of the tent caterpillars* 

 eggs, and he didn't shoot the bird. 



The next is one of our best friends, a bird with a very long 

 tail, the Black-billed Cuckoo. This is one of the birds that will 

 eat a hairy caterpillar. There are not many that will. The 

 most of them will eat the big. juicy fat ones, but this will eat 

 all kinds, even the tent caterpillar. Last year I found a nest 

 of one in an apple tree, very near one of my cages where I 

 keep some of my choicest caterpillars. Well, I loved the bird 

 and I loved the caterpillars and so I didn't know what to do. I 

 climbed up and looked into the nest but I didn't hurt the bird, 

 but she resented that so much that she changed her nest, just 

 because I had looked at it. I thought it was very unkind in 

 her, but still I didn't feel very bad to think she went some- 

 where else. 



This is not a very common bird in Maine. I am told it is quite 

 common in Connecticut. But once in a while we see it, as it mi- 

 grates through here. It is the Scarlet Tanager, with bright 

 wings and tail and a bright red body. I suppose, being so 



