CHAPTER VIII. 



DKOLLERIES OF THE WOODS. 



THE BLUE JAY. 



JAY! Jay! Jay! Hilloa I What's to pay ? What shrill 

 clamor breaks upon the silence of the dark woods, like a 

 watchman's rattle, sudden on the midnight Jay ! Ja-a-a-ay ! 

 in prolonged and angry shriek answers the alarm, from 

 a thicket near at hand. Jay ! sharp and shrill, takes up the 

 cry yet from the distance, until far and wide the woods re- 

 echo with the clang of the gathering guardians of the wild ! 



The intruder stands mute in astonishment, at this unlooked- 

 for outbreak. They come! they come! They gather yet 

 more fiercely about him. See there ! a saucy fellow has de- 

 scended, limb by limb, a tree close by, screaming yet louder 

 as he comes more near, with crest erect, spread tail, and 

 sharp, fierce eyes, and with snapping beak, seems ready to 

 devour the unoffending stranger in his wrath. With many 

 an antic pirouette, it peers into his face, and turning to its 

 noisy fellows, now gathered close behind to back its valorous 

 charge, shrieks the report of its inquisition, to urge their 

 tardy courage on. 



" What ho ! my friends, am I a robber or a thief!" the be- 

 wildered hunter may remonstrate. But the answer is in 

 yet fiercer cries, until they dance above his head in a fan- 

 tastic ecstasy of fierceness, and yell their deafening gibes 

 and taunts into his ears. Patience has bounds: one shot 



