THE BLUE JAY 45 



tage of what no doubt seems to him a custom of 

 very late rising on the part of human beings. 



Among small birds of all sorts he bears a de- 

 cidedly bad name. In nesting time you may 

 hear them uttering a chorus of loud and bitter 

 laments as often as he appears among them. 

 Their eggs and young are in danger, and they 

 join forces to worry him and drive him away. 

 One bird sounds the alarm, another hears him 

 and hastens to see what is going on, and in a 

 few minutes the whole neighborhood is awake. 

 And it stays awake till the jay moves off. After 

 that piece of evidence, you do not need to see 

 him doing mischief. The little birds' behavior 

 is sufficiently convincing. As Thoreau said, the 

 presence of a trout in the milk is something like 

 proof. 



And jays, in their turn, club together against 

 enemies larger than themselves. Last autumn 

 I was walking through the woods with a friend, 

 a city schoolmaster eager for knowledge, as 

 every schoolmaster ought to be, when we heard 

 a great screaming of blue jays from a swampy 

 thicket on our right hand. 



" Now what do you suppose the birds mean 

 by all that outcry ? " said my friend. 



I answered that very likely there was a hawk 

 or an owl there. 



