BLUE TAY: 69 
XIX. 
BLUE JAY. 
THE blue jay comes with a dash and a flourish. 
As Thoreau says, he “ blows the trumpet of win- 
ter.” Unlike the chickadee, whose prevailing 
tints match the winter sky, and whose gentle day- 
day-day chimes with the softly falling snows, the 
blue jay would wake the world up. His “ clario- 
net” peals over the villages asleep in the snow- 
drifts as if it would rouse even the smoke that 
drowses over their white roofs. He brings the 
vigor and color of winter. He would send the 
shivering stay-at-homes jingling merrily over the 
fields, and start the children coasting down the 
hills. Wake-up, wake-up, come-out, come-out he 
calls, and blows a blast to show what winter is 
good for. 
And so he flashes abeut, and screams and seolds 
till we crawl to the window to look at him. Ha! 
what a handsome bird! He has found the break- 
fast hung on the tree for him and clings to it 
pecking away with the appetite of a Greenlander. 
Not a hint of winter in his coloring! Note his 
purplish back as he bends over, the exquisite 
cobalt blue, touched off with black and white on 
his wings, and the black barring on the tightly 
closed tail he is bracing himself by. How distin- 
euished his dark necklace and handsome blue 
