OUR HOME BIRDS. 
283 
and attack him from all sides, raising such a shout 
as may be heard in a still day more than half a 
mile off. When in my hunting excursions I have 
passed near this scene of tumult, I have imagined 
to myself that I heard the insulting party venting 
their respective charges with all the virulency of 
a Billingsgate mob ; the owl meanwhile returning 
every compliment with a broad, goggling stare. 
The war becomes louder and louder, and the 
owl, at length forced to betake himself to flight, 
is followed by his whole train of persecutors until 
driven beyond the boundaries of their jurisdic- 
tion/ 
“ The jay’s favorite food is chestnuts, acorns, and 
Indian corn. He occasionally feeds on bugs and 
caterpillars, and sometimes pays a plundering visit 
to the orchard, cherry-rows, and potato-patch, and 
has been known, in times of scarcity, to venture 
into the barn through openings between the weather- 
boards. ‘ In these cases he is extremely active and 
silent, and if surprised in the fact makes his escape 
with precipitation, but without noise, as if conscious 
of his criminality/ 
“ He does not disdain, too, to sneak through the 
woods on a tour of destruction, and among the 
thickets and hedgerows, ‘ plundering every nest he 
can find of its eggs, tearing up the callow young by 
