74 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 



pick up the corn the squirrels had scattered there. 

 They were so persistent, and at the same time so 

 dignified and peaceable, that the squirrels could 

 not hold out against them ; and though for a time 

 the birds took advantage of the squirrels' laziness 

 and got a good breakfast mornings before the 

 sleepy fur coats appeared, two or three weeks of 

 10 20 below zero silenced the squirrel's last 

 prior-claims argument and the jays were allowed 

 to eat undisturbed from the same boxes with 

 them. 



But it is not only the squirrels that the blue 

 jays dine with, for one day last winter the little 

 three-year-old came running out of the dining- 

 room in great excitement, crying, " Oh, grandpa ! 

 come quick ! There are three partridges, and one 

 of them is a blue jay ! " Indeed, the other day 

 the blue jays quite took possession of the corn 

 barrels that are the special property of the part- 

 ridges. The barrels stand under the branches of 

 a Norway spruce on either side of a snow-shoe 

 path that runs from the house, and though the 

 jays were self-invited guests, I could not help ad- 

 miring the picture they made, they flying about 

 and sitting on the barrels, the dark green of the 

 boughs bringing out the handsome blue of their 

 coats. 



But the spot where I have found the blue jays 

 most at home is in the dense coniferous forests of 

 the Adirondacks. I shall never forget seeing a 



