THE REFERENDUM 



181 



THE WICKED JAY. 



Editor Recreation : 



In the February issue of Recreation, the 

 article calling' for a war on the crow, 

 by W. L. Bliss, of Rockford, 111., with the 

 editor's note, brings tip the subject as to the 

 worst foe to our game and song birds and 

 how it is possible for us to help protect them. 

 Their continual disappearance can easily be 

 noticed and we all feel the loss. Their trials 

 are many, for the woods abound with 

 enemies of every description. 



I do not wish to protect the crow, neither 

 do 1 wish to try and make him one bit bet- 

 ter than he is, for at best he is bad. But I 

 expect to show and conclusively prove that 

 he has a companion in his dastardly work 

 that far excels, in cunning and ferociousness, 

 his awkward and boisterous methods in the 

 destruction of the homes, eggs and young of 

 our game and singing birds. 



The crow is bad, but the blue jay is worse. 



I know, for I have had occasion to closely 

 follow his habits, that he takes more lives 

 of the unprotected birds than any other 

 known enemy in our Northern country. The 

 crow stays in the woods in the morning only 

 for a short time after leaving his roosting 

 place. He spends nearly all the day in the 

 open fields searching for food and returns to 

 the trees again only as evening draws near. 

 At these periods, it is true, his destruction of 

 life is great and keenly felt. 



But what of the jay, who spends his entire 

 time, from the break of day until the shad- 

 ows fall, flying from tree to tree hunting the 

 nesting places of all the birds smaller than 

 himself. It takes but little time to drive the 

 parent birds away, destroy the eggs, or kill 

 the young. 



Last year during the nesting season, while 

 in St. Lawrence county, in the Cranbury 

 Lake region, I closely watched a pair of old 

 blue jays from the time they built their nest 

 until their young were able to care for them- 

 selves. I watched them thrive and grow on 

 the eggs and young of other birds. I can not 

 give the record of these old birds nor the ex- 

 act number of lives • they took. But I can 

 estimate it high enough to warrant them be- 

 ing called the worst and most destructive 

 enemies of the game and song birds of our 

 country. 



The jay is lazy, and like some of our lazy 

 people, believes that an easy way to make a 

 living is by robbery. 



Spending six months of each year in the 

 Adirondacks, I have easily noticed the falling 

 off of the birds, the songs of which at one 

 time filled the North Woods with music, and 

 I feel their absence very much. In the mean- 

 time the blue jay is continually increasing, 

 and his harsh shriek and unmusical call is 

 forever ringing through the quiet woodland 

 E. C Katz, Fulton N. Y. 



TOM. 



Editor Recreation: 



If there was one thing that old Bill loved 

 better than himself, it was his horse. At 

 first Tom was a scraggy colt of the Apache 

 breed. While in Arizona six years before, 

 Bill had traded a sadly dilapidated French 

 harp to an old Apache buck for the colt. 

 The old rascal thought he had cheated Bill 

 beautifully and he strolled off down the Gila 

 River, grinding out what he considered mel- 

 ody of the highest class. To use Bill's 

 words for it : "When that wave of sound 

 broke upon the ears of the Gila monsters — ■ 

 sidewinder rattlesnakes and centipedes — they 

 just naterly couldn't stand it, and every 

 last one of them pizen varmints made a wild 

 dash over the sand hills for San Carlos, and 

 the dust they kicked up looked like a sand- 

 storm." 



Bill was a hunter and trapper, and when 

 I heard this story he was hunting and trap- 

 ping wolves on White River in Colorado. 

 No better woodsman could be found than 

 he, and he knew the nature and the habits 

 of the wild creatures of the woods as well 

 as it is possible for man to know them. 

 Bill and Tom were inseparable companions, 

 and Bill had a habit of talking to Tom much 

 the same as he would to a human being, 

 and the wonder of it was Tom seemed to 

 understand what his master said to him. 

 The hunting season had closed by the time 

 Bill had his camp established; that is, it was 

 as far as the white man was concerned. 

 However, the Utes of the White River res- 

 ervation refused to honor the game laws 

 and considered that they had a right to kill 

 deer when they took a notion to do so, 

 which was about every month in the year. 



As Bill said, "The woods was full of the 

 pesky varmints." It being literally a fact 

 at that time, as there was no less than a 

 dozen encampments of the shiftless Indians 

 strung up and down Yellow Creek in the 

 vicinity of Bill's camp. Now those red 

 game thieves were an eyesore to the old 

 trapper, and the cause of several one-sided 

 conversations between him and Tom. "Dad 

 rot their smoke colored hides, Tom," he 

 would say, "what in thunder do you sup- 

 pose they can be thinkin' about, a-shootin' 

 these hard buckskins down jist to get the 

 poor critters' hide. The first thing we know 

 there won't be any more deer left in this 

 neck of the woods than in Carson City. 

 Dad-rat their ornery pictures." 



Tom would listen to this outburst with 

 one ear cocked front and the other back 

 and roll his eye until the white showed in a 

 most alarming fashion, which made him look 

 decidedly vicious. But the old hunter 

 Vv r ould only grin at this demonstration and 

 remark that if he and Tom had the job of 

 lookin' after the game "they would send 

 them blamed Utes squadkin for home like 



