CHAPTER XIII 



What Birds Say and Sing 



A NOTHER of our friends is the jay bird, a 

 /% beauty in plumage, friendly in disposition, 

 -Z JL a good husband and father, but dangerous 

 to the nests and eggs of other birds. His call note 

 is high, clear, and rather antagonistic: "D'jay, 

 d'jay," certainly an obtrusive and self-satisfied 

 note. He asks no favour, courts no bird but his 

 mate. He may utter this cry once or a dozen times. 

 I always get the impression from it that he would 

 not avoid trouble if he met it, and usually he finds 

 it. Perched on a conspicuous branch in early 

 spring, when other birds are singing mating songs, 

 the bluejay sings: "Ge-rul-lup" over and over, 

 making rather an attractive song of it. The bluejay 

 notes that really are pleasing to my ear are those 

 uttered by a number of jays having a party after 

 nesting affairs are over, when they gather in the top 

 branches of a tree and in soft tones tell each other 

 to "fill the kittle, fill the tea-kittle," and there are 

 times, when Father Jay perching near his nest 

 looks at his mate with an expression of extreme 

 devotion, and in whispered, throaty utterances 

 says to her something that sounds to me like 



239 



