CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 65 



take a course in anthropology before he can 

 love his neighbor. 



It is a truth only too patent that taste and 

 conscience are sometimes at odds. One man 

 wears his faults so gracefully that we can hardly 

 help falling in love with them, while another, 

 alas, makes even virtue itself repulsive. I am 

 moved to this commonplace reflection by think- 

 ing of. the blue jay, a bird of doubtful character, 

 but one for whom, nevertheless, it is impossible 

 not to feel a sort of affection and even of re- 

 spect. He is quite as suspicious as the brown 

 thrush, and his instinct for an invisible perch is 

 perhaps as unerring as the cuckoo's ; and yet, 

 even when he takes to hiding, his manner is 

 not without a dash of boldness. He has a most 

 irascible temper, also, but, unlike the thrasher, 

 he does not allow his ill-humor to degenerate 

 into chronic sulkiness. Instead, he flies into a 

 furious passion, and is done with it. Some say 

 that on such occasions he swears, and I have 

 myself seen him when it was plain that nothing 

 except a natural impossibility kept him from 

 tearing his hair. His larynx would make him 

 a singer, and his mental capacity is far above 

 the average ; but he has perverted his gifts, till 

 his music is nothing but noise and his talent 

 nothing but smartness. A like process of dep- 

 ravation the world has before now witnessed in 



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