BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 2638 
Not unfrequently he will give a stirring note of alarm if he 
discovers an enemy approaching, which resembles the harsh 
rattle of the kingfisher. He is credited with imitating other 
birds. With how much truth I cannot say, but if he does not, 
it will be about the only mischievous thing he does not essay 
to do. 
About the last week in April he builds his nest in a second 
growth red or black oak ina thicket, or a large bush about seven 
feet from the ground. It is loosely built of small sticks, twigs, 
and coarse roots, lined with a finer kind of the same, and leaves. 
Four to five light-green eggs are laid, covered with light brown 
spots. Instances occur in which two broods are brought out in 
a season, but only one is the rule. 
In no portion of the State where timber or brush are found, 
is he not to be found from the Lake of the Woods to the Iowa 
line. I cannot call them beneficial to agriculture, but should 
be sorry to pass a long Minnesota winter without both seeing 
and hearing them, as they have been so long identified with 
the bird life of the country. 
Notrt. The vicious habit of this species of eating the eggs 
of its own, and of the other birds, has become more and more 
evident as I have had further opportunities to observe. In 
this, however, he has the precedent of so many other species, 
that he can with plausibility plead as good reason for justifica- 
tion as the rumseller, who sells his ‘‘liquid death” because, if 
he did not, ‘‘the other fellow would.” My indignation has been 
at white heat on catching him at the destruction of the eggs of 
some of the little fellows that were no match for him. So 
widely is his character known amongst the feathered tribes of 
his habitudes, that there has come to exist an unwritten edict 
of outlawry against him, so that when he is caught in the act 
of trespass, a recognized signal-call will enlist the entire deni- 
zens of his section in a simultaneous pursuit of him. But he 
soon disregards, or wilfully forgets all such protests, and re- 
news his inglorious depredations upon the earliest opportunity. 
I have never witnessed his destruction of the young birds, as I 
have the butcher birds but am prepared to believe almost any- 
thing 1 may hear against him. As with instances among an- 
other species of bipeds, neither talents nor external adornment 
shields them from common contempt. Still, as with some bad 
boys, we cannot but like them notwithstanding all their faults, 
when we hear the cheery notes amid all the desolations of a 
northern winter. The question of the jay’s powers of mimicry 
of the notes of numerous other birds, has long been at rest with 
me, fcr | am an eye and an ear witness. His most wonderful, 
and most successful demonstrations have been in imitating very 
small birds like the Chickadee, Pewee, Winter Wren, several of 
18 z; 
