MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. II 



no doubt that in his old age he accounted for his lameness 

 by some handsome story of a wound received at the famous 

 Battle of the Pines, when our tribe, overcome by numbers, 

 was driven from its ancient camping-ground. Of late years 

 the jays have visited us only at intervals ; and in winter their 

 bright plumage, set off by the snow, and their cheerful cry, 

 are especially welcome. They would have furnished ALsop 

 with a fable, for the feathered crest in which they seem to 

 take so much satisfaction is often their fatal snare. Country 

 boys make a hole with their finger in the snow-crust just 

 large enough to admit the jay s head, and, hollowing it out 

 somewhat beneath, bait it with a few kernels of corn. The 

 crest slips easily into the trap, but refuses to be pulled out 

 again, and he who came to feast remains a prey. 



Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a settlement in 

 my pines, and twice have the robins, who claim a right of 

 pre-emption, so successfully played the part of border-ruffians 

 as to drive them away, to my great regret, for they are the 

 best substitute we have for rooks. At Shady Hill (now, 

 alas ! empty of its so long loved household) they build by 

 hundreds, and nothing can be more cheery than their creak 

 ing clatter (like a convention of old-fashioned tavern-signs) 

 as they gather at evening to debate in mass meeting their 

 windy politics, or to gossip at their tent-doors over the 

 events of the day. Their port is grave, and their stalk 

 across the turf as martial as that of a second-rate ghost in 

 Hamlet. They never meddled with my corn, so far as I 

 could discover. 



For a few years I had crows, but their nests are an irre 

 sistible bait for boys, and their settlement was broken up. 

 They grew so wonted as to throw off a great part of their 

 shyness, and to tolerate my near approach. One very hot 

 day I stood for some time within twenty feet of a mother 

 and three children, who sat on an elm bough over my head, 

 gasping in the sultry air, and holding their wings half-spread 

 for coolness. All birds during the pairing season become 

 more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone 

 very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of 

 their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, 

 and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper 

 Saint Preux standard has something the effect of a Missis 

 sippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things 



