SOME MISCHIEF—MAKERS 119 
he makes his home from the Mexican border up to the fur 
countries. 
“But do you know that this Crow is cousin to the Blue 
Jay?” 
“How funny! What makes them cousins? —for they 
don’t look a bit alike, and they’re not the same colour or 
anything,” said Sarah, Tommy, and Dave, almost together. 
“Yes, that is true, but colour and feathers have noth- 
ing to do with bird relationship any more than coloured 
hair has to do with human families, and you can see that 
here among yourselves. The Baltimore Oriole, Meadow- 
lark, Bobolink, and Purple Grackle all belong in one 
family, and yet how unlike they seem. It is the construc- 
tion of the bird’s body and its habits and traits that serve 
the Wise Men as guides to their grouping, and in these 
traits the two are much alike, for Mr. Chapman, who knows 
all about these birds, whether as museum specimens, where 
he can study their bones, or as wild birds in the trees, 
where he watches them day in and day out, says, ‘ Our 
Crows and Jays inhabit wooded regions, and, although 
they shift about to a limited extent, they are resident 
throughout the year, except at the northern limits of 
their range. They are omnivorous feeders, taking fruits, 
seeds, insects, eggs, nestlings, ete. Crows and Jays ex- 
hibit marked traits of character and are possessed of 
unusual intelligence. Some scientists place them at the 
top of the tree of bird life, and if their mental develop- 
ment be taken into consideration they have undoubted 
claim to high rank.’ 
“You see, also, that here is a Wise Man who believes 
that birds have intelligence that implies thinking, and 
