130 BLUE JAY. 



Like the Crow, lie is with us throughout the year. Dur- 

 ing the summer he is not very common, and is remark- 

 ably quiet, but in September and Octo- 

 Blue Jay, ^ er m jg ran t; 8 arrive from the North, and 



Gyanocitta cwstata. . 



the birds are then abundant in bands. 

 These bands roam about the country like a lot of school- 

 boys out chestnutting, pausing wherever they find acorns 

 and chestnuts abundant, or leaving their feast to worry 

 some poor Owl whose hiding place they have discovered. 



The Blue Jay's best friend could not conscientiously 

 call him a songster, but as a conversationalist he rivals 

 the Crow. I have yet to discover a limit to his vocab- 

 ulary, and, although on principle one may ascribe al- 

 most any strange call to the Blue Jay, it is well to with- 

 hold judgment until his loud, harsh jay ! jay ! betrays 

 the caller's identity. Not content with a language of 

 his own, he borrows from other birds, mimicking their 

 calls so closely that the birds themselves are deceived. 

 The Ked-shouldered, Eed-tail, and Sparrow Hawks are 

 the species whose notes he imitates most often. 



The Blue Jay nests in the latter part of May, build- 

 ing a compact nest of rootlets in a tree ten to twenty 

 feet from the ground. The eggs are pale olive-green 

 or brownish ashy, rather thickly marked with varying 

 shades of cinnamon-brown. 



ORIOLES, BLACKBIRDS, ETC. (FAMILY ICTERID^E.) 



The popular names of many of our birds were given 

 them by the early colonists because of their fancied re- 

 semblance to some Old World species. The fact that 

 some of these names are incorrect and misleading has 

 been pointed out scores of times, but they are now ftfi 

 firmly fixed as the signs of the zodiac. 



