222 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



ful. They are now tame and reckless. They 

 troop into the pasture after the wild cherries 

 which they eat with chattering and scolding. On 

 vibrant limbs they give spirit rappings in imita- 

 tion of a woodpecker. Then they laugh and 

 scream about it. Hearing them we always say, 

 ''How fallish it sounds.'* 



The blue jay has not only a whole vocabulary 

 of his own, both in conversation, from twittering 

 to oratory, and in calls from assembly cries and 

 notes of warning to screams of derision and de- 

 fiance, but he is an imitator in certain lines. He 

 will imitate the red-shouldered hawk and the 

 sparrow hawk and I suspect him of mixing it in 

 conversation with the flicker. Often at this time 

 of year I hear a subdued, rather sweet-voiced 

 murmur in the wood as if a ladies' sewing so- 

 ciety was just beginning to get busy pulling out 

 the bastings. I know very well it is a convention 

 composed of blue jays or flickers, but it is not so 

 easy to tell which until I slip up and surprise 

 them at it. The subdued tones of both birds in 

 such conventions assembled are very much alike 

 and I suspect that their polite conversation is 

 in a common language. But I never can prove 

 this, for they do not fraternize. The convention 



