other Papers. 271 



Sitting upon our porch one evening lately, we could not but 

 remark on the wonderful change the past ten or twelve years had 

 made in that respect around us. It occurred to us to note the 

 names of the varieties whose voices we heard during ten minutes 

 before sundown. There were robins, wrens, and jays, martins and 

 blue birds ; fartlier off in the apple trees were orchard and Balti- 

 more orioles, yellow warblers ; through the air were swallows and 

 bee martins chattering and squeaking ; the cardinals and red 

 breasted gross beaks and cat birds kept up unceasingly from the 

 majDles ; from a high old linn came the melodious clucking of a 

 little brown bird and chirping of the indigo. Abont the porch 

 were pee wees and sweet springs (so called). Doves complained and 

 blackbirds scolded over the way. In a wood close by a crow 

 croaked, while from the darker depths a whippoorwill screamed as 

 though in reply to- the clang of a night jay. Warblers and tlirashes 

 and quails sounded from the hed^e close by, while a red head wood- 

 pecker screamed and a yellow one hammered on a fence j)ost. As 

 though crazed by all this confusion, a thrush and some mocking 

 birds that are occasional visitors whistled, yelled, and laughed. 

 In fact within a very few rods of us we counted the voices of 

 twenty-seven different varieties of birds where once all was quiet 

 but for the call of the jay. 



Speaking of the jay reminds us that here again at the start, 

 we tried to interfere with nature and drive off the jays. The jay 

 has a bad name and people do like to have an excuse for killing 

 something besides the mice. But after thinking it all over and 

 comparing experiences of over fifteen years with neighbors, we 

 conclude the jay is slandered considerably. He will not steal only 

 when he has to — and perhaps he thinks as a trader did, a man must 

 cheat a little to make an honest living. He certainly does not 

 get angry unless insulted, and then we can declare from much 

 watching of him, he gratifies his indignation by getting a company 

 of his followers to jeer and call out the object. Generally one will 

 do most of the villifying, and when satisfied will rise up in the air 

 and all his company with him, calling back in most jeering tones. 

 Instead of being such an infamous robber and air pirate, such a 

 monster as to eat up little ones and tear up homes of others, I can 

 truthfully say that I have never seen it, although a colony has for 

 seventeen years at least lodged just in front of my door and in a 

 tree under which in summer I often sit of afternoons — and this 

 colony, be it remembered, is right in the midst of nests of some 

 twenty to thirty different kinds of birds. 



