In God's Acre 81 



where of a fight between a bluejay and a scarlet tanager and 

 of the bewildering confusion of color beauty that the combat 

 presented. In the grosbeak-bluejay fight there was a change 

 of color scheme, but the confusion and the beauty were there 

 not a bit abated. The grosbeak thrashed the jay, whereat 

 three human spectators rejoiced in concert with a dozen ruby- 

 crowned kinglets who had watched the row from a thicket. 

 The grosbeaks disappeared from Graceland on the afternoon of 

 Friday, April 2Oth, thereby disappointing some bird-lovers 

 who made belated attempts to see them. 



I have just called the jay a thief. I have called him so a 

 number of times, and I will call him so again when opportu- 

 nity offers. He is a thief, but he is an interesting thief and I 

 don't know that we could do without him. What would the 

 doctors do if they didn't have criminals to study in order to 

 form new degeneracy theories? Why, the doctors would lose 

 half the fun of their profession. When you see a jay sneak- 

 ing off through the trees with his bill spiked through a stolen 

 robin's egg, you know at once why everything that wears 

 feathers hates him. A Kentucky friend once told me of see- 

 ing a jay deliberately lift four newly hatched mockingbirds 

 out of the nest and drop them to the ground, where they 

 perished. I had thought there must have been some mistake 

 about this story, for while I knew the jay was fond of eggs, I 

 hardly thought he was hardened enough to commit murder. 

 I am no longer in doubt. I found in Rose Hill cemetery 

 the nest of a wood pewee. It was a beautiful little lichen-made 

 saucer resting on the upper side of a broad horizontal limb of 

 an oak. I visited the nest a number of times and watched 

 the father bird launch out from the tree to snap up occasional 

 insect trifles. He was a pugnacious little fellow and he kept 



