- breaks off and every feather will shove how indignant he is. 
Sometimes he angrily attacks the string or the nail; and if — 
a scrap falls to the ground, down he tumbles to get it. 
He is very fond of hazel nuts, and races with the 
squirrels each fall to see which can harvest the largest 
~ amount of this crop. The child who wants a share of 
western wild nuts must be spry and out early. He may 
wonder how this small fruit, so well protected by a prickly 
sheath and hard shell; can be picked out and cracked by a 
bird only about a foot long, bill and tail included. 
Watch him in August as he alights on a hazel stem 
which sways with his heavy body. How he searches every 
- twig, and when his big bold eyes finds a pair of these nuts | 
_ how he pounces on them with his strong beak, and jerks 
back and forth until he gets them and flies to a steadier 
support, on anything that happens to be near! See him 
_ gtrike the case first to the right and then to the left on his 
perch until he loosens the nut, pries it out and swallows it 
~ whole. Watch the swelling in his throat twisting about, as 
it slips down his neck, much as it does in an ostrich when 
fed an orange in California. For an instant after it is down 
the jay will seem to be thinking of his sins, then off he will _ 
fly with a harsh shriek as he hunts for another dainty. | 
_ While jays that are boarding at a bird table will slip 
through the shrubbery along with other jays, juncos, and 
towhees, they do not make friends with any winged creature 
other than their own kind. They have a bad reputation with 
birds and man, especially in the spring when they are said 
__ to be cannibals, and to love to finish off a day’s harvest 
with an egg or small fledgeling. They are accused of wreck- 
ing many a nest, and the long slit often found in the quaint 
hanging pocket of the bush-tit is charged to their accounts. 
They probably are guilty of these wicked deeds, but 
: those who have ever watched them as they slide gracefully 
down the air, or jauntily climb the spiral staircase of the 
tallest tree in the neighborhood, willnotentirelybanishthem. _ 
114 
