34 Twelve Months With 



bling refrain, which I have heard rather happily 

 described as a mixture of the songs of the blue 

 bird and robin, and in many years of observation 

 of the birds I have never been sure of hearing 

 his song but once, on which occasion I was able 

 to observe the bird while singing. It is a pity 

 he doesn't take time to use his song oftener, but 

 apparently he thinks singing is effeminate or an 

 unworthy pastime, and therefore contents himself 

 with his noisy "make! make! make!" 



The jay is another bird of strong individuality. 

 The blue jay is the only one of the family in this 

 latitude, east of the Rocky Mountains, and it has 

 therefore been the only jay with which I have 

 been familiar, and yet its individual traits are so 

 characteristic and distinctive, and therefore so 

 easily detected and identified in other members 

 of the jay family, that when I saw the mountain 

 jay for the first time in the Rockies a few years 

 ago I knew it instantly, and also when I saw the 

 Canada jay for the first time, in the summer of 

 1915, in the forests of Ontario, I identified it at 

 once without difficulty. A jay is a jay the world 

 over. His plumage may vary in color, but he 

 always discloses his identity by his characteristic 

 movements, and by what Riley called his "sass" : 



"Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass, 

 In them baseball clothes o' his, 

 Sportin' 'round the orchard jes' 

 Like he owned the premises!" 



