BLUE JAY 71 



The food of Robins includes a great variety 

 of insects, and earthworms pulled from the sod; 

 the berries of the China tree, holly, and mistle- 

 toe; wild cherries, as well as those of the or- 

 chard; service-berries, and dogwood, cedar and 

 sumach berries. 



BLUE JAY 



Fine feathers, even in two shades of steel- 

 bright blue with white borders, do not make a 

 fine bird of this crafty robber of nests. His 

 voice betrays him with its screeching "whongee, 

 whongee, jay! jay! jay! hit 'm a lick, hit ? im a 

 lick ! ' ' Undeniably he has his own place in crea- 

 tion, and fills his own sphere of usefulness; but 

 it is not in the vicinity of our homes, where the 

 gentler songbirds are more to be desired. 



He is accused of murderous attacks on smaller 

 birds, and certainly eats both eggs and young 

 when he can find an unguarded nest; but he is 

 rather cowardly. I have seen a pair of Red-- 

 eyed Vireos, defending their home, put a pair of 

 these noisy bullies to flight. 



Jays are almost as destructive as their cous- 

 ins the Crows, and have the same love of teasing 

 and scolding. A gang of them will sometimes 

 discover the daytime retreat of an inoffensive 

 Screech Owl and tease and chase him from one 

 tree to another with malicious glee, as Crows 



