BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 263 



Not unfrequently he will give a stirring note of alarm if he 

 discovers an enemy approaching, which resembles the harsh 

 rattle of the kingfisher. He is credited with imitating other 

 birds. With how much truth I cannot say, but if he does not, 

 it will be about the only mischievous thing he does not essay 

 to do. 



About the last week in April he builds his nest in a second 

 growth red or black oak in a thicket, or a large bush about seven 

 feet from the ground. It is loosely built of small sticks, twigs, 

 and coarse roots, lined with a finer kind of the same, and leaves. 

 Four to five light-green eggs are laid, covered with light brown 

 spots. Instances occur in which two broods are brought out in 

 a season, but only one is the rule. 



In no portion of the State where timber or brush are found, 

 is he not to be found from the Lake of the Woods to the Iowa 

 line. I cannot call them beneficial to agriculture, but should 

 be sorry to pass a long Minnesota winter without both seeing 

 and hearing them, as they have been so long identified with 

 the bird life of the country. 



Note. The vicious habit of this species of eating the eggs 

 of its own, and of the other birds, has become more and more 

 evident as I have had further opportunities to observe. In 

 this, however, he has the precedent of so many other species, 

 that he can with plausibility plead as good reason for justifica- 

 tion as the rumseller, who sells his "liquid death" because, if 

 he did not, "the other fellow would." My indignation has been 

 at white heat on catching him at the destruction of the eggs of 

 some of the little fellows that were no match for him. So 

 widely is his character known amongst the feathered tribes of 

 his habitudes, that there has come to exist an unwritten edict 

 of outlawry against him, so that when he is caught in the act 

 of trespass, a recognized signal- call will enlist the entire deni- 

 zens of his section in a simultaneous pursuit of him. But he 

 soon disregards, or wilfully forgets all such protests, and re- 

 news his inglorious depredations upon the earliest opportunity. 

 I have never witnessed his destruction of the young birds, as I 

 have the butcher birds but am prepared to believe almost any- 

 thing I maj^ hear against him. As with instances among an- 

 other species of bipeds, neither talents nor external adornment 

 shields them from common contempt. Still, as with some bad 

 boys, we cannot but like them notwithstanding all their faults, 

 when we hear the cheery notes amid all the desolations of a 

 northern winter. The question of the jay's powers of mimicry 

 of the notes of numerous other birds, has long been at rest with 

 me, for I am an eye and an ear witness. His most wonderful, 

 and most successful demonstrations have been in imitating very 

 small birds like the Chickadee, Pewee, Winter Wren, several of 

 18 z: 



