48 



Bird - Lore 



he is a dignified character. To touch the hem of his robe to the 

 food would have been defilement, so he went about pressing his 

 wings tight to his sides, sometimes giving them a little nervous 

 shake. To smile at this sober-minded person seems most disrespect- 

 ful, but the solemnity of his gambols was surely provocative of 

 mirth. Not content with turning his long-billed head judicially from 

 side to side as he advaYiced through the scraps, if the biscuit on his 

 left was not to his mind, with one great ungainly leap he would box 

 half the compass and plant his big feet before a potato on his right. 

 This he would proceed to probe with a grave air of interrogation, 

 and if he decided the case in the negative would withdraw his beak 

 and pass to the next case on the docket. Once when the potato 

 was half a waffle, he pried it up tentatively with his long bill, and at 

 last, deciding in its favor, proceeded to fly off with it, his long legs 

 dangling ludicrously behind him. 



The Oregon Jays were quite unlike their Crow cousins. They 

 would come flying in, talking together in sociable fashion, and drop 

 down so noiselessly you could but be struck by the difference 

 between fluffy owl-like feathers and stiff quills. Sometimes one of 

 the Jays would touch the side of a tree a moment before dropping 

 lightly to the ground. All their motions were quick and easy, if 

 not actually graceful, and they worked rapidly, with none of the pro- 

 found deliberation shown at times by the Nutcracker. The smaller 

 pieces of food they ate ; the larger ones they carried off, usually in 

 their bills, occasionally in their claws. In eating, the Jay would 



sometimes adopt the Blue Jay 

 style and put his food under his 

 foot, where he could pull it 

 apart, throwing up his head to 

 swallow. When the food was 

 soft and too large to swallow at 

 one gulp, both Crows and Jays 

 would carry it to an evergreen, 

 lay it down on a twig before 

 them, and there eat comfortably, 

 as from a plate. Both birds often 

 flew to the ledges of the cliff for 

 food that had lodged there in 

 falling, and it made a busy scene when eight or ten of the big fel- 

 lows were flying about the place at once. 



( To be concluded.) ' 



OREGON JAV 



