XV 

 TWO STUDIES IN BLUE 



BLUE is not a common color among our birds. There 

 are many more clad in neutral tints of brown and 

 gray than in bright blue. But a list of birds that every 

 one should know could not be complete without our two 

 commonest studies In blue, the Bluebird {Sialia sialis) and 

 the Blue Jay {Cyanocitta cristata). In all our woods, 

 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, one may find these two, 

 one gentle and friendly, the other bold, boisterous, and 

 untrustful. 



A small flock of jays are a noisy pack in the autumn. 

 They squawk through the woods as if they want every- 

 body to know just where they are, but in the spring, 

 after they have paired and are nesting, they suddenly go 

 speechless, as if they can't trust themselves to talk out 

 loud. And, indeed, they can't when anywhere about the 

 nest. They talk in whispers, and flit as silently as shad- 

 ows through the trees. 



In the early spring I heard the jays squawking about 

 the maples on the hill, but I knew they would not nest 

 there; that was only a playground. A quarter of a mile 

 below this w^as a thick clump of fir saplings. They would 

 take this thicket for a home. The last week in May I 

 searched through this and found the nest eight feet from 

 the ground among the close limbs. 



163 



