BLUE OR METALLIC BLUE 



487 



And yet a Blue Jay can be gentle, and few birds are 

 so devoted to mates or young. Two robins may quarrel, 

 two orioles often do, but Blue Jays never. If a young 

 Jay is taken from one nest and placed in another, he re- 

 ceives the same treatment from his foster parents that 

 their own young do ; but these same Blue Jays will 

 bring the nestlings of other birds for him to eat. 



Their ordinary call-note is very discordant, but I have 

 heard them sing their love songs at four A. M., when 

 no one was supposed to hear 

 but the mother bird on the 

 nest in the tall pine tree. 

 Those critics who write learn- 

 edly of bird songs, putting 

 them into notes on a scale, 

 may not speak of this clear, 

 low coniversational 

 warbling as "music," 

 but it is the outpour- 

 ing of a great joy, bless- 

 ing alike the singer and 

 the one who hears. 



In the vicinity of Monterey, nest-building usually be- 

 gins early in April, and for ten days the male brings 

 twigs, rootlets, moss, and grass, with mud enough to 

 cement them well together. These the female weaves 

 into a cup-shaped affair quite unlike the flat platform of 

 twigs made by our Eastern jays. It is oftenest lined 

 with pine needles or rootlets, but occasionally short hair 

 from cattle or deer is found in it. Incubation lasts six- 



^'/. 



,^ 



478. Steller Jay. 



'•'• Nowh&rG are they 

 welcome," 



