THE BLUE JAY 45 
tage of what no doubt seems to him a custom of 
very late rising on the part of human beings. 
Among small birds of all sorts he bears a de- 
cidedly bad name. In nesting time you may 
hear them uttering a chorus of loud and bitter 
laments as often as he appears among them. 
Their eggs and young are in danger, and they 
jon forces to worry him and drive him away. 
One bird sounds the alarm, another hears him 
and hastens to see what is going on, and in a 
few minutes the whole neighborhood is awake. 
And it stays awake till the jay moves off. After 
that piece of evidence, you do not need to see 
him doing mischief. The little birds’ behavior 
is sufficiently convincing. -As Thoreau said, the 
presence of a trout in the milk is something like 
proof. 
And jays, in their turn, club together against 
enemies larger than themselves. Last autumn 
I was walking through the woods with a friend, 
—a city schoolmaster eager for knowledge, as 
every schoolmaster ought to be, — when we heard 
a great screaming of blue jays from a swampy 
thicket on our right hand. 
“ Now what do you suppose the birds mean 
by all that outery?” said my friend. 
I answered that very likely there was a hawk 
or an owl there. 
