The California Jays 



But oh, how sweet is the smell of returning moisture! and how 

 grateful the flick of tiny raindrops on the face! All nature is "swelling 

 wisibly" with sap and satisfaction, and life begins over again in joyous 

 earnest. The Meadowlarks exult, of course, and the lordly males chuckle, 

 "I told you so," to their doubting mates. Bush-Tits lisp with treble 

 emphasis, and, if it be early spring, the Robins go dashing about excitedly, 

 packing their Alaska trunks, and bidding their friends good-bye. But it 

 is the California Jay, the "Blue Jay," whose ear-splitting voice has most 

 notably revived. We can almost forgive him all his mischief for the 

 hearty, saucy stridor of his rain-wet tones. 



But — but — mischief, thy name is Blue Jay. It falls, now, to the 

 writer's unhappy lot to rehearse the sins of the California Jay, and surely, 

 the recording angel himself has no more laborious task — unless, as we 

 strongly suspect, the office keeps an extra clerk on this job. To see our 

 jay munching an acorn, which is, by most accounts, his proper food, one 

 would extol his exemplary virtue. [One correspondent, indeed, grumbles 

 because the jay is robbing the hogs thereby ; but we'll let that pass. We're 

 not as hoggish as that yet.] Whack, whack, whack, goes the jay's intrepid 

 beak, until Sir Acorn with a groan yields up his substance. Mast, accord- 

 ing to Beal, forms 38 per cent of this Jay's food. Acorns are gathered and 

 hoarded for future use also, not methodically, as in the case of the Cali- 

 fornia Woodpecker, but still laboriously. Casual hidey holes in bark or 

 broken limbs or rotting stumps are utilized, with now and then a more 

 ambitious attempt to fill space, as in the case of Mark Twain's immortal 

 bird. If the cache gets wormy, so much the better. So much better, in 

 fact, that some observers have feigned to believe the birds, with conscious 

 art, are preparing worm cultures. 



Akin to this is their habit, well attested, of burying nuts, especially 

 almonds, in the earth. Doubtless the bird intends to make inquiry later 

 of his buried talent; but doubtless, also, this miserly trick has served 

 Nature's purpose now and then in producing new trees. 



Speaking of almonds, the depredations of the California Jay are such 

 as to make the orchardist weep. Outlying trees are fairly stripped, and 

 what the birds cannot eat they carry away. The case does not seem to be 

 so bad with English walnuts, for although some are eaten at immature 

 stages, the shell soon becomes too hard to interest the jays. As a pilferer 

 of fruit, again, the jay has few rivals and no superiors. He is at it early 

 and late. Nothing daunts him. Shot guns? Who would not run such 

 risk for a juicy ripe cherry! "Bing" or bang, it is all one to a brave heart. 

 Mr. Beal, the economic expert, tells of observations made on a small 

 prune orchard, placed where a small ravine debouched from the wooded 

 hills. "The fruit was just ripening and a continuous line of jays was 



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