338 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



It was on the same Sunday he had the adventure with the robin that 

 he was initiated into the delights of bathing. 



I offered him a tin hand basin half filled with water. He hopped 

 round and round it, finally alighting on the edge, but as to plunging in, 

 would he dare ? Not quite, though he made a feint at it. When a 

 flower pot saucer was given him he eagerly hopped in and began to 

 flutter his wings and tail and duck his head with the sang froid of an 

 habitual bather. Later in the day he went to walk, riding on my wrist. 

 He needed but a hood, and I a white palfry, to transport us back into 

 the days of |Chivalry, when ladies rode forth to the hunt with their 

 hooded falcons on their wrists. In the course of our wandering we 

 came to a tiny brook threading its way through a tangle of wild roses, 

 jewel-weed and ground-nut vines. Here we seated ourselves to rest 

 and no sooner did J-J spy the sparkling water than he hopped down 

 and took another plunge. 



Whenever he felt like having a splash, even though the day was 

 cold and rainj^, he knew how to ask for it. He had two ways of doing 

 so which spoke as plainly as words could do. The most appealing 

 was when he crouched, breast down upon the floor and fluttered wings 

 and tail as if he were already in the water. The second was when he 

 jumped on to the edge of his drinking cup, dipped in his head as far as 

 possible, then lifting it gave it a vigorous shake that sent the drops 

 flying half across the room. 



During J-J's second month he was introduced to an old toad in the 

 garden that had grown plump on the caterpillars of the brown-tail 

 moths, the angle worms and insects with which I had fed him. The 

 first thing the Jay did was to jump upon his back and give him a sharp 

 peck, by doing which he learned that toads are not beings to be trifled 

 with. He received a mouthful of such an acrid fluid that for almost an 

 hour afterward he was coughing and endeavoring to spit it out. He 

 never beheld a toad afterwards without fleeing from it in terror. 



J-J was as neat about his person as a cat and spent a great deal of 

 time drawing his feathers through his beak to remove any dirt which 

 may be clinging to them. After each meal, indeed after every mouth- 

 ful or two, he cleaned his beak by wiping it on his wooden napkin, a 

 twig or chair back. 



Living in a somewhat musical atmosphere had sufficient influence 

 upon J-J not only to make him a singer, but an exquisitly sweet one. 

 It is my custom to practice singing for a half hour every morning. 

 Now our pet had never been allowed access to the parlor, but one 

 morning as I was playing a prelude, he appeared at the doorway and 

 peering curiously about, cautiously ventured a hop or two over the 



