Sketches of Montana. 



215 



feeding along the shore, and after he had 

 finished his breakfast perched himself on a 

 drift stick which ran out into the water, 

 and sat there for hours practicing the 

 thrush-like song with which next spring he 

 was to charm his mate and lighten her 

 labors all through the long summer days. 

 He was a young bird, but his song, though 

 low, was sweetly musical. And he tried it 

 over and over again, stopping whenever he 

 made a mistake and beginning anew, with 

 a patience and a perseverance that was 

 most admirable. He seemed a very humble 

 bit of life as he stood there clad in Quaker 

 gray, and hardly to be distinguished from 

 the stones of the beach about him; but no 

 one could help admiring the little fellow, 

 or being delighted by the liquid notes, 

 which the surrounding silence made only 

 more sweet. 



On one of the trees hung the shoulders 

 of the sheep, and these, shining red against 

 the dark green, soon attracted the notice 

 of a vagrant family of gray jays which, like 

 a troop of devil-may-care marauders, were 

 skylarking among the pines. What amus- 

 ing rascals these meat-hawks are. They 

 are incomparably impudent, and their dar- 

 ing compels your admiration. If they hap- 

 pened to care for it they would have no 

 hesitation in trying to steal the nose off 

 your face. Perhaps they could succeed in 

 doing it, who knows. At all events they 

 would make a bold effort for it. To use 

 an expressive Western phrase "they would 

 steal the cross of a mule " — if they took a 

 fancy to it. A gray jay has no hesitation 

 in alighting within three feet of your face 

 and winking at you in a rakish rollicking 

 way as much as to say, " Don't you wish 

 you could catch me ? " He will stand on 

 the legs of a deer which is hanging in a 

 tree while you are skinning it, and will dart 

 down to the ground after every little bit of 

 meat or fat that drops from your knife. 

 Sometimes two or three will stand about 

 your feet, almost like hens about a person 



who is feeding them. You can entice them 

 almost up to your hand by judiciously toss- 

 ing bits of meat to them, making each one 

 fall a little nearer you than the last. 



And yet they understand very well how 

 to take care of themselves, do the gray 

 jays. Talk about catching a weasel asleep, 

 why a weasel is a fool to a gray jay ! They 

 watch you suspiciously with their keen 

 black eyes, always on the alert, ever ready 

 to take flight to avoid a snare. Treat them 

 as generously as you please, they will not 

 trust you. They have borrowed their 

 motto from the Mantuan bard, and each 

 one of them lives up to it most religiously, 

 and thinks, if he does not say, Timeo 

 Danaos, et dona ferentes. Still they plunge 

 down on to your meat or close to your fire 

 with an audacious flirt, which makes you 

 feel that the camp really belongs to them 

 and that you are only an intruder and 

 ought, if you have any modesty about you 

 at all, to withdraw and take yourself off 

 into the timber. Then there is a flirt of 

 wings and tail, a sort of experimental trial 

 of the limbs to see that they are in good 

 working order in case they should be sud- 

 denly called on to use them. The next 

 thing is to raise themselves to full height 

 as if standing on tiptoe to get a good look 

 on all sides. A couple of hops bring them 

 to the coveted morsel. If it is not too 

 large they carry it off bodily to a neighbor- 

 ing branch, and then holding it under one 

 foot, hammer and tear it until it is so di- 

 vided that it can be swallowed, but if it is 

 a large piece of meat they tear off bits and 

 strips until they have a good beakful, and 

 then fly to a safe distance to eat it, return- 

 ing almost immediately for more. They 

 sometimes cling and hang to a piece of 

 meat like titmice, upside down. Usually 

 only one will be present at a time, and the 

 moment he leaves his position another 

 takes his place. If two should alight to- 

 gether, the younger almost immediately 

 retires, for the other holds himself very 



