136 BIRDS 



summer he may keep quiet, but he throws off all restraint 

 in autumn. Hear him hammering at an acorn some 

 frosty morning ! How vigorous his motions, how alert and 

 independent! His beautiful military blue, black, and 

 white feathers, and crested head, give him distinction. 



He is certainly handsome. But is his beauty only skin 

 deep? Does it cover, in reality, a multitude of sins? 

 Shocking stories of murder in the song bird's nest have 

 branded the blue jay with quite as bad a name as the 

 crow's. The brains of fledglings, it has been said, are his 

 favorite tid-bits. But, happily, scientists who have 

 turned the searchlight on his deeds find that his sins have 

 been greatly exaggerated. Remains of young birds were 

 found in only two out of nearly three hundred blue jays' 

 stomachs analyzed. Birds' eggs are more apt to be sucked 

 by both jays and squirrels than are the nestlings to be 

 eaten. Let him who has never enjoyed an egg for break- 

 fast throw the first stone at this sinner. Fruit, grain, thin- 

 shelled nuts, and the larger seeds of trees and shrubs — 

 gathered for the most part in Nature's open store-room, 

 not in man's — are what the jay chiefly delights in ; and these 

 he hides away, squirrel-fashion, to provide for the rainy 

 day. By burying acorns and the small nuts, he plants in- 

 numerable trees. More than half of all his food in sum- 

 mer consists of insects; then he is quite as useful as his 

 cousin, the crow. 



Jays are fearful teasers. How they love to chase about 

 some poor, blinking, bewildered owl, in the daylight! 

 Jay-jay-jay, you may hear them scream through the 

 woods. They mimic the hawk's cry for no better reason, 

 perhaps, than that they may laugh at the panic into which 

 timid little birds are thrown at the terrifying sound.' 



