STELLER JAY 
There is an adage old but true 
I fear Blue Jay applies to you © 
This is the truth that Irecall 
_ “Speak well of friend or not at all.” 
So there is little Ican say | | ) 
Until, bold knave, you mend your way. 
—Nina Moore 
41 you find a hack epestod: big, blue bird anywhere, 
that seems to be master of all he surveys, be sure you have 
met a member of the Jay family, although there are Jays 
- that are not crested nor blue. In the West, the smaller, 
paler variety of the coast in Oregon and California, which 
has a top-knot, is called Grinnell’s Jay ; the group with a long 
gray spot above the eye, of the Inland Empire is the Black- 
headed Jay; while the noisy birds found west of the Cascade 
Range from middle California through Washington are 
known as Steller Jay; but his ways are the same, in any 
place he is a resident. Run across him wherever you may 
in valley or plain, he so often shows you by the flirt of his. 
wings, the twist of his tail, the stretch of his blue body, or 
the flattening of his handsome crest, that you are in the 
- wrong place and that he is owner of the world. 
There are times, however, when he no longer shows a 
haughty spirit. Catch him in mischief, or meet him in May 
during the strenuous nest-building or brood-feeding period 
and a jay seems to have changed his disposition. His — 
_ struggles have affected his manners, for he is as shy as a 
thrush, and as vicious as a head-hunter in his attacks on 
the eggs or young of other birds. He slips almost unseen 
through the shadows when near his hidden nest, which is 
often placed in the most secret depths of an evergreen 
tangle, usually above your head, although one foolish pair 
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