26 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



may perhaps be accounted for by solitary birds not rinding 

 one of their own species to pair with." 



Blue jays, like their cousins the crows, are intelligent and 

 ingenious birds and can communicate with each other. In 

 January, 1902, my friend, Mr. Max Munte, wrote to me say- 

 ing: "I have a pair of jay birds among my numerous family 

 of sparrows. Their notes of warning are frequently heard 

 and I invariably find that they have discovered a screech owl 

 in one of the large maple trees in front of my residence 

 and what a noise they can make ! The other day there was 

 quite an amusing scene. The pair of jays and sparrows tried 

 to dislodge the poor little owl from its place. Many attempts 

 were made but all failed. All at once the cry of the jays and 

 the scolding of the sparrows ceased. The jays flew away. The 

 sparrows in the meantime formed a silent cordon completely 

 around the enemy, and in but a few minutes from the time 

 the pair of jays left the field of battle, they returned with 

 nine new jay recruits which with the original two and the 

 hords of sparrows, made a formidable army against the little 

 owl, but the brave little fellow would not budge, and gave tit 

 for tat with bill and wings. All this racket was kept up 

 until nearly night. The owl was getting the best of it. The 

 sparrows one after another, ventured to their homes, but not 

 without giving us a taste of their sweet voices, scolding and 

 lamenting bad luck. My two jays remained. The battle was 

 over and the little owl was victor." He adds, "It would be 

 interesting to know where those nine jays came from. The 

 two that went after them undoubtedly knew where to find 

 them. The distance must have been considerable, if we meas- 

 ure by the length of absence. Also the two messengers which 

 went after them must have had some way by action or voice 

 to communicate their object in coming after them, and of a 

 prospective fight with their enemy, the owl." 



The blue jay is not a songster. His call notes, however, 

 are varied and some of them are not unmusical. Some of 

 them sound like "cable, cable, cable"; "we-hue, we-hue, we- 

 hue"; "de-leary, de-leary, de-leary"; "de-jay, de-jay, de-jay"; 

 "jay, jay, jay." One of my friends says that when he wants to 

 trick a man, he calls "jay, jay," and when the man's attention 



