PESTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 129 



The blue jay has been indicted for numerous 

 petty offenses against the farmer, but his record as 

 a destroyer of insects has saved him from punish- 

 ment. Recently, however, a new fact has been 

 revealed which when fully known should make this 

 saucy and handsome bird the safest from harm of 

 all our small birds. It is known that the eggs of 

 the deadly brown-tail moth hatch in the autumn, 

 and the young pass the winter in nests that are 

 formed in trees. To meet this unusual condition, 

 the blue jay blithely seeks out those nests in winter, 

 tears them open, and devours the contents! Now, 

 if this is not sufficient to induce every forester to 

 look upon the blue jay with a protecting eye, 

 nothing ever will avail. 



Various species of blackbirds destroy small 

 amounts of grain, but I never knew a farmer to kill 

 one on that account. No one else knows half so 

 well as the plowman the industry and success of our 

 old friend the purple grackle in gleaning the abomi- 

 nable white grub-worms out of the freshly turned 

 furrows, and the lonesome plowman finds real com- 

 panionship in the birds that follow him with 

 cheerful industry, hour after hour, when the field is 

 destitute of other company. 



Only once have I ever known an individual crow 

 to be so diligent in wrong-doing as to deserve the 

 death penalty. In 1902, many young ducks were 

 hatched in the Zoological Park, and no sooner had 

 the ducklings taken to the waters of the Wild- 



