The Blue Jay 27 



is attracted to him, he will in derision call, "too-slick, too- 

 slick." This may be fancy. Indeed, the translation of what 

 the birds say is difficult and often imaginary. The jay, however, 

 does have a fashion of mimicking the distress calls of other 

 birds and when he has done so seems to delight in the fact that 

 he has fooled them. It is in winter that the jays are most boist- 

 erous and then at times they become very noisy. Then when 

 in flight, they often turn to those behind and chatter long and 

 loudly. When nesting time comes they quit their noisy prac- 

 tices and give attention to the more serious duties of rearing 

 their young. 



Since the days of Audubon, the blue jay has been de- 

 nounced, and has been accused of being "dishonest, cruel, 

 murderous and villanous." Audubon brands him as a coward 

 and says, "The cardinal grosbeak will challenge him, and 

 beat him off the ground. The red thrush or the mocking 

 bird, and many others, although inferior in strength, never 

 allow him to approach their nests with impunity; and the 

 jay, to be even with them, creeps silently to it in their absence, 

 and devours their eggs and young whenever he finds them." 

 It is said, however, that the figures clear his name of these 

 and other ugly charges. Professor F. E. L. Beal, of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, made an examina- 

 tion of two hundred and ninety-two stomachs of the blue jay, 

 collected in every month of the year from twenty-two states, 

 the District of Columbia and Canada, and in the summary to 

 his report he says ; "The most striking point in the study of 

 the food of the blue jay is the discrepancy between the testi- 

 mony of field observers concerning the bird's nest-robbing 

 proclivities and the result of stomach examinations. The ac- 

 cusations of eating eggs and young birds are certainly not sus- 

 tained, and it is futile to attempt to reconcile the conflicting 

 statements on this point, which must be left until more ac- 

 curate observations have been made. In destroying insects the 

 jay undoubtedly does much good. Most of the predacious 

 beetles which it eats do not feed on other insects to any great 

 extent. On the other hand, it destroys some grasshoppers and 

 caterpillars and many noxious beetles, such as Scarabeids, 

 click beetles, weevils, Buprestids, Chrysomelids, and Tenebri- 



