THE VALUE OF TAILS. 131 



the family, which also he accomplishes with 

 much noise and bluster. Before the young are 

 out comes his hardest task, keeping the secret of 

 the nest, which obliges him to control his natu- 

 rally boisterous tendencies ; but even in this he 

 is successful, as I saw in the case of a bird whose 

 mate was sitting in an apple-tree close beside a 

 house. There, he was the soul of discretion, and 

 so subdued in manner that one might be in the 

 vicinity all day and never suspect the presence 

 of either. All the comings and goings took 

 place in silence, over the top of the tree, and I 

 have watched the nest an hour at a time without 

 being able to see a sign of its occupancy, except 

 the one thing a sitting bird cannot hide, the tail. 

 And, by the way, how providential from the 

 bird student's point of view that birds have 

 tails ! They can, it is true, be narrowed to the 

 width of one feather and laid against a conven- 

 ient twig, but they cannot be wholly suppressed, 

 nor drawn down out of sight into the nest with 

 the rest of the body. 



When the young blue jays begin to speak for 

 themselves, and their vigilant protector feels 

 that the precious secret can no longer be kept, 

 then he arouses the neighborhood with the an- 

 nouncement that here is a nest he is bound to 

 protect with his life ; that he is engaged in per- 

 forming his most solemn duty, and will not be 



