A Blue Cannibal 89 



character of the blue-coated Robin Hood. There was no 

 faltering or hesitancy in his conduct, but he seized and 

 carried off his little victim as if he were to the manner 

 born, and had become hardened by practice in depreda- 

 tions of the sort. 



A farmer once related the following incident to me: 

 A pair of chipping sparrows had built a nest in a bush 

 in his front yard. One day after the little ones had 

 arrived, he heard a distressed chirping coming from the 

 parent birds, and on going to the front yard, he caught 

 a blue jay in the act of picking a callow bantling from 

 the chippie's nest. Holding it in his bill, the jay flew 

 across the field with his prize, and presently returned 

 and bore off a second nestling. By this time the farmer's 

 ire was aroused ; he bolted into the house and secured his 

 shotgun, and when the marauding jay came back on the 

 third trip on robbery intent, the man brought him to the 

 ground with a shot that ended his career. 



Yet the jay is not wholly bad indeed, not even half 

 bad. Before me lies a valuable pamphlet entitled "The 

 Blue Jay and His Food," written by F. E. L. Beal, Assist- 

 ant Biologist of the Department of Agriculture at Wash- 

 ington, whose researches have converted him into some- 

 thing of an apologist for our blue gentleman in feathers. 

 He dissected the stomachs of 292 jays, collected during 

 every month of the year in twenty- two states, the District 

 of Columbia, and Canada. After stating that mineral 

 substances in the stomachs examined averaged over 14 

 per cent of the total contents, Mr. Beal says : 



