74 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
pick up the corn the squirrels had scattered there. 
They were so persistent, and at the same time so 
dignified and peaceable, that the squirrels could 
not hold out against them; and though for a time 
the birds took advantage of the squirrels’ laziness 
and got a good breakfast mornings before the 
sleepy fur coats appeared, two or three weeks of 
10°—20° below zero silenced the squirrel’s last 
prior-claims argument and the jays were allowed 
to eat undisturbed from the same boxes with 
them. 
But it is not only the squirrels that the blue 
jays dine with, for one day last winter the little 
three-year-old came running out of the dining- 
room in great excitement, crying, “Oh, grandpa! 
come quick! There are three partridges, and one 
of them isa blue jay!” Indeed, the other day 
the blue jays quite took possession of the corn 
barrels that are the special property of the part- 
ridges. The barrels stand under the branches of 
a Norway spruce on either side of a snow-shoe 
path that runs from the house, and though the 
jays were self-invited guests, I could not help ad- 
miring the picture they made, they flying about 
and sitting on the barrels, the dark green of the 
boughs bringing out the handsome blue of their 
coats. 
But the spot where I have found the blue jays ; 
most at home is in the dense coniferous forests of 
the Adirondacks. I shall never forget seeing a 
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