228 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



hear them break them off. They then flew to a suitable 

 limb and, placing the acorn under one foot, hammered 

 away at it busily, looking round from time to time to 

 see if any foe was approaching, and soon reached the 

 meat and nibbled at it, holding up their heads to swal- 

 low, while they held it very firmly with their claws. 

 (Their hammering made a sound like the woodpeck- 

 er's.) Nevertheless it sometimes dropped to the ground 

 before they had done with it. 



JV^ov. 13, 1858. I see some feathers of a blue jay 

 scattered along a wood-path, and at length come to the 

 body of the bird. What a neat and delicately orna- 

 mented creature, finer than any work of art in a lady's 

 boudoir, with its soft light purplish-blue crest and its 

 dark-blue or purplish secondaries (the narrow half) 

 finely barred with dusky. It is the more glorious to live 

 in Concord because the jay is so splendidly painted. 



June 10, 1859. Surveying for D. B. Clark on " Col- 

 lege Road," so called in Peter Temple's deed in 1811, 

 Clark thought from a house so called once standing on 

 it. Cut a line, and after measured it, in a thick wood, 

 which passed within two feet of a blue jay's nest which 

 was about four feet up a birch, beneath the leafy 

 branches and quite exposed. The bird sat perfectly still 

 with its head up and bill open upon its pretty large 

 young, not moving in the least, while we drove a stake 

 close by, within three feet, and cut and measured, being 

 about there twenty minutes at least. 



Oct. '21, 1860. As I am coming out of this,^ looking 

 for seedling oaks, I see a jay, which was screaming at 



^ [A white pine wood.] 



