r 54 BY- WA YS AND BIRD-NO TES. 



ality bubble like brooks in spring and gush 

 like the thrush's song in nesting time. 



Bird-hunting and bird-loving folk get the 

 very best out of life in the way of sensuous 

 pleasures not in the least voluptuous or over- 

 stimulating. Just now, looking back over my 

 notes, observations and recollections of out- 

 door life, my long association with most of our 

 minor song-birds appears something well worth 

 having experienced. Much of what I remem- 

 ber is knowledge of a kind scarcely communi- 

 cable by any literary or artistic means, or by 

 any method of natural expression. Once I 

 heard a blue-jay sing as sweetly as the mock- 

 ing-bird when trilling in a tender minor key. 

 I could hardly believe my own sight and hear- 

 ing as the beautiful, tricksy creature sat before 

 me with drooping crest and half-raised wings, 

 swaying his body lightly up and down and 

 uttering a low, almost bewildering flute medley, 

 full of the cadences of dreams. 



Still the blue-jay is not reckoned among the 

 singing birds by those who are not close ob- 

 servers. His common notes, though occasion- 

 ally musical and sweet, are, as a rule, harsh 

 and ill-tempered ; a very imaginative person 

 might conclude that the dolefully tender song 

 I heard was the result of a fit of remorse, on 

 the blue-jay's part, for myriads of sins com- 

 mitted against the nests, the eggs, and the 

 young of other and weaker birds. How often 

 I have witnessed acts of the most brutal cruelty 

 done by the jay in apparently the quietest 

 mood imaginable ! 



I recall an instance now : A sparrow had a 

 nest with young in a clump of lilac-bushes on 

 a lawn in 'front of a room I was occupying. 



