66 CHARACTERM@N FEATHERS. 
political life, when a man of brilliant natural 
endowments has yielded to low ambitions and 
stooped to unworthy means, till what was 
meant to be a statesman turns out to be a dem- 
agogue. But perhaps we wrong our handsome 
friend, fallen angel though he be, to speak thus 
of him. Most likely he would resent the com- 
parison, and I do not press it. We must admit 
that juvenile sportsmen have persecuted him 
unduly ; and when a creature cannot show him- 
self without being shot at, he may be pardoned , 
for a little misanthropy. Christians as we are, 
how many of us could stand such a test? In 
these circumstances, it is a point in the jay’s 
favor that he still has, what is rare with birds, 
a sense of humor, albeit it is humor of a rather 
grim sort,— the sort which expends itself in 
practical jokes and uncivil epithets. He has 
discovered the school-boy’s secret: that for the 
expression of unadulterated derision there is 
nothing like the short sound of a, prolonged 
into a drawl. Yah, yah, he cries; and some- 
times, as you enter the woods, you may hear 
him shouting so as to be heard for half a mile, 
‘‘Here comes a fool with a gun; look out for 
him!” 
It is natural to think of the shrike in connec- 
tion with the jay, but the two have points of 
unlikeness no less than of resemblance. The 
