492 LAND BIRDS 



About the farms and henhouses he is even a greater 

 pest, eating the eggs and occasionally killing the newly 

 hatched chicks. Foraging in bands, these Jays destroy 

 quantities of fruit of every variety and pull up the young 

 sprouts of wheat. In short, there seems to be no limit 

 to the Jay's mischief, and nothing too bad to say of him. 

 In addition to all this, every bird-student sooner or later 

 comes to feel a personal grievance against him, for 

 seldom or never does one of these pests fail to discover 

 your presence in a wood and to give warning of it far 

 and wide to everything that flies. As long as you stay, 

 so long will he, perched on the tallest tree-top, sit 

 screaming, " Here she is ! here ! here ! " in open defiance 

 of your wish for quiet or concealment. Every bird in 

 the forest knows and hides. Observation is impossible, 

 and with unspoken maledictions on his little flat blue 

 head you sadly trudge on to another wood. Fortunate 

 indeed are you if he does not collect a band of his fellows 

 and follow you. 



There is another side of this story. In spite of our- 

 selves we are forced to admire his dashing courage and 

 gay nonchalance, his devotion to his kind, and his care 

 for his young. There is something uncanny in the 

 wisdom with which these Jays band together for defence 

 or offence. Although so 'quarrelsome with other birds, 

 they never molest each other, nor do they kill an injured 

 one of their kind, as robins do. 



Their nests are placed in low bushes or thickets, or on 

 the horizontal branch of an oak, seldom more than ten 

 feet from the ground, and usually near water. This last 



