Jays and Crows 1 8 1 



of you and though he builds his nest near your 

 home, he never relaxes his belief that you will do 

 him a mischief if you get a chance. Try to feed 

 him and you will see just how much he believes 

 in your benevolence. He will swoop down and 

 snatch some of the offered food, but it is frankly 

 the act of one robber robbing another robber and 

 not the act of a friend receiving a gift from an- 

 other friend. 



It was a proud day in my life when after a thou- 

 sand failures a Jay allowed me to give him some- 

 thing. I well remember how I smiled all over 

 and asked him to come around and drink tea with 

 me that evening. He excused himself, but we got 

 to be real chums and our relations were cordial 

 if not exactly intimate. What an interesting vaga- 

 bond he was. My old Collie dog, Lobo, was old 

 and stricken in years and the dinner given him 

 was often beyond his capacity and he would lie 

 down in the sun outside the kitchen door and 

 straightway go to sleep on guard, for which of 

 course, according to military law, he should have 

 been shot at sunrise, but he was not stood up 

 against a wall and so Yorick, not wanting him to 

 go scot free for such a lapse from the obvious 

 line of duty, took the occasion to rob him of the 

 remainder of the badly guarded dinner. After 

 which he would perch himself on a nearby stair- 

 way, just out of the sleeper's reach and proceed 



