*Reprinted by permission from "The Evening Post," New York.
In his coat of light blue, trimmed with white and black, bearing his
crest jauntily atop of his head, the blue jay presents an attractive
picture. And, indeed, although I myself feel that the Baltimore
oriole, the scarlet tanager, the ruby-throated hummingbird, and many of
the wood warblers carry off the palm for brilliancy of plumage, there
are persons who declare that the jay is the most handsomely colored
bird in our temperate regions.
While the jay dons an engaging attire, not much can be said in the way
of eulogy for his vocal talents or acquirements. Many of his calls are
harsh, penetrating, and even raucous. Frequently, too, he indulges in
a great to-do over nothing, fairly splitting your ears with his noisy
cries. I have said it is a to-do over nothing, though Mr. Jay may
think he has the best reason in the world for making a fuss. Often
espying some coveted prize on the ground in my back yard, instead of
quietly dropping down and taking it, he and his companions would dash
about in the trees, swing their bodies sidewise and up and down in an
excited way, and scream at the top of their voices, sometimes drawing
me out of the house to see what had gone wrong in Jaydom. They seemed
to be determined to attract the attention of every person on the
premises to the fact that they wanted that morsel on the ground, but
were afraid to venture down after it. Perhaps they meant by their
objurgations to test their human neighbors, to ascertain whether any of
them were prowling about with a gun or a sling, ready to do them harm.
If there should be any such prowlers, probably the jays meant to induce
them to come out of their ambush, to show themselves in the open, and
give their jayships a chance to escape. Bird psychology, as you will
have occasion to note more than once, is a good deal of an enigma. How
often we would give a handsome bonus to a bird if he would let us know
precisely what he was thinking about!
[Illustration: Blue Jay]
Although no musician, the jay has quite an extensive vocal repertory.
Besides his loud, challenging call, he frequently utters a series of
calls that have a pensive quality and that fill the mind with an
indefinable foreboding, especially on chill autumn days when all the
woods are bare and gray and the wind is moaning through the boughs.
Sometimes when a jay is hidden in a copse, he utters a low, scolding
sputter, that seems to express the very quintessence of disgust. It is
simply his way of telling you what he thinks of a man who goes prowling
about without leave in the precincts of the birds.
Have you ever heard the jay's brief musical roulade? It is only a wisp
of melody, rarely rich and suggestive, heard a moment, then gone. You
know something sweet has passed by, but something so brief and elusive
that you scarcely know what it was. Long after it has dropped on your
ear, it continues to haunt your memory, and you try again and again to
reproduce it, but in vain. It has a kind of gurgling quality, as if
the bird were pressing his notes through an aqueous lyre, if such a
conception is possible. Besides, I have, on more than one occasion,
heard a jay warble a soft, reserved little lay that was continued for
many minutes. It sounded very like the song of the brown thrasher,
much modulated and partly uttered under its breath--a sort of flowing,
rythmical melody.
A question that disturbs all bird lovers more or less is this: Does the
fine white vest of the jay cover a bad heart? Is he really a thief, a
nest robber, or even worse, a cannibal, in plumes? May the guardian
spirit of all feathered folk forbid that I should blacken the
reputation of any bird, yet honesty compels me to give an affirmative
answer to the foregoing question. I hasten, however, to say that I do
not believe he is as black as he has been painted by some observers,
who seem to delight in making out a verdict of capital guilt against
him. Although a predatory bird, he is not engaged all the time in
bloodthirsty pursuits, but only while his young are in the nest
clamoring for food. What are some of the proofs of his vandalism? I
will mention a few of them.
First, almost all the small birds make uncompromising war upon him,
especially in the breeding season, and many of them show signs of dire
distress when he goes near their nests. They often utter pitiful
cries, droop their wings, and the bravest of them dash at him savagely,
giving him many a cuff on the head and back. The wood pewee and the
kingbird succeed, I think, in driving him away; but the vireos and
warblers, being so much smaller, suffer greatly from his depredations.
If there were no real cause for it, these birds would not be filled
with panic and rage on account of the jay's presence. There is strong
presumptive evidence that they know him for an outlaw only too well.
The following incident will furnish positive proof of the jay's
cannibalistic proclivities: One spring my little boy brought home from
the country a young house wren, thinking it would make a delightful
pet. It was quite well fledged, but its short tail and white mouth
border proclaimed the tenderness of its youth. Fearing that the little
thing could not be reared by hand, as it refused all our proffered
tidbits, and chirped continually for its parents, I persuaded the lad
to give it its freedom. A mother wren living on our premises seemed
inclined to adopt the little waif, and we decided to put it under her
care. No sooner was the youngling let out of the cage than it flew to
the side of the house and began to scramble up the brick wall. It had
a hard tug, but at length succeeded in reaching a resting place on a
window-shutter of the second story.
Presently the mother wren heard its calls and paid it a visit; but
instead of feeding it, she seemed very anxious to drive it away,
knowing, no doubt, that there were predaceous enemies in the
neighborhood. In her attempts to drive it into hiding, she pecked it
on the head and in the mouth. Then she dropped down into a thicket and
secured a green worm, with which she flew up to the chirping waif's
perch; but I could not make out that she fed the birdling, though she
thrust the worm toward its open mouth. Soon after she had gone off the
second time, the little bird clambered around the corner of the wall to
the lower side of the house, where it rested a while on a narrow shelf.
All this time my boy and I were watching it intently. Suddenly a blue
jay came flying over from one of the trees of an adjacent yard, moving
in a rapid, stealthy way. First it plunged into an apple tree at the
corner of the house; then, before I could collect my wits enough to
know what was happening, it darted over to the brick wall, seized the
little wren with its bill, and bore it off. The mother wren followed,
uttering a pitiful chatter, while the little victim called loudly for
help. The blue kidnapper darted to a tree in my neighbor's yard, where
he put his booty under his claw on a limb, holding it by one slender
leg, while its body dangled below. Hoping still to rescue the little
captive, I sprang over into the adjacent yard with a loud shout and
much waving of my hands; but my vigorous efforts only caused the jay to
pick up the wren in its bill and continue its flight, and neither wren
nor jay was seen by me again. This incident furnishes unimpeachable
testimony against the character of the blue-coated Robin Hood. There
was no faltering or hesitancy in his conduct, but he seized and carried
off his little victim as if he were to the manner born, and had become
hardened by practice in depredations of the sort.
A farmer once related the following incident to me: A pair of chipping
sparrows had built a nest in a bush in his front yard. One day after
the little ones had arrived, he heard a distressed chirping coming from
the parent birds, and on going to the front yard, he caught a blue jay
in the act of picking a callow bantling from the chippie's nest.
Holding it in his bill, the jay flew across the field with his prize,
and presently returned and bore off a second nestling. By this time
the farmer's ire was aroused; he bolted into the house and secured his
shotgun, and when the marauding jay came back on the third trip on
robbery intent, the man brought him to the ground with a shot that
ended his career.
Yet the jay is not wholly bad--indeed, not even half bad. Before me
lies a valuable pamphlet entitled "The Blue Jay and His Food," written
by F. E. L. Beal, Assistant Biologist of the Department of Agriculture
at Washington, whose researches have converted him into something of an
apologist for our blue gentleman in feathers. He dissected the
stomachs of 292 jays, collected during every month of the year in
twenty-two states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. After stating
that mineral substances in the stomachs examined averaged over 14 per
cent of the total contents, Mr. Beal says:
"The real food is composed of 24.3 per cent of animal matter and 75.7
per cent of vegetable matter, or a trifle more than three times as much
vegetable as animal. The animal food is chiefly made up of insects,
with a few spiders, myriapods, snails, and small vertebrates, such as
fish, salamanders, tree frogs, mice, and birds. Everything was
carefully examined which might by any possibility indicate that birds
or eggs had been eaten, but remains of birds were found in only two,
and the shells of small birds' eggs in only three of the 292 stomachs.
One of these, taken on February tenth, contained the bones, claws, and
a little skin of a bird's foot. Another, taken on June twenty-fourth,
contained the remains of a young bird. The three stomachs with bird's
eggs were collected in June, August, and October, respectively. The
shell eaten in October belonged to the egg of some larger bird like the
ruffed grouse and, considering the time of year, was undoubtedly merely
an empty shell from an old nest. Shells of eggs which were identified
as those of domesticated fowls, or some bird of equal size, were found
in eleven stomachs, collected at irregular times during the year. This
evidence would seem to show that more eggs of domesticated fowls than
of wild birds are destroyed, but it is much more probable that these
shells were obtained from refuse heaps about farm-houses."
Mr. Beal's dissections are very significant, proving that the jay is
not only not so destructive of eggs and bantlings as was supposed, but
also that he destroys many noxious insects, and is, therefore, a bird
of real economic value. The great bulk of his insect diet consists of
beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars, with a few bugs, wasps, and
flies, and an occasional spider and myriapod. The average of insect
food for the whole year was 23 per cent, varying from less than 1 per
cent in January to over 66 per cent in August, and it is gratifying to
know that predaceous beetles and tent caterpillars form a large part of
the jay's bill of fare.
His demands upon domesticated fruits and grains are comparatively
light. He cares more for acorns and mast than for corn. The last he
does not greatly relish, but eats it chiefly when the snow covers his
favorite food. It is a little surprising that he occasionally varies
his diet with fish, salamanders, tree frogs, mice, and shrews. Mr.
Beal's conclusion is put in the following sentence, which closes his
valuable monograph: "In fact, the examination of nearly three hundred
stomachs shows that the blue jay does far more good than harm."
An important question, therefore, from more than one point of view is:
Should we ever kill the blue jay? Perhaps as sensible an answer to
that question as can be given is this: We should by no means engage in
a war of extermination upon the jays, but it might be wise, when they
become too abundant, to thin out their numbers somewhat by shooting
some of them or driving them away. It can scarcely be denied that if
they are permitted to thrive without hindrance, and grow to large
numbers, they will become sorely destructive of the eggs and nestlings
of more desirable birds. I assure you, however, that I make this
statement with reluctance and reserve, for the handsome blue-coat is
one of our most cunning and interesting birds, and would be greatly
missed if he were exterminated.
The blue jay is also a plucky bird, as I discovered one day not so very
long ago. A pair of jays had a nest in a little park in front of my
house, and one day one of the youngsters, which were still unable to
fly, dropped to the ground. Fearing the cats or evilly disposed boys
might catch the little fellow, I thought to do him and his parents a
good turn by catching him and putting him up in one of the trees beyond
the reach of his enemies. After quite a chase I succeeded in catching
him. But the parent birds, flitting and calling in the trees, did not
understand my well-meant intentions, and so one of them swung down and
struck me on the top of the head with so much force that, either with
his bill or his claws; he punctured the skin and made the blood come,
leaving a scar on my crown for quite a while. The pesky thing! I
think he might have known that I was his friend--but he didn't, his
instinct not being a sure guide that time. But who can blame him? Not
an hour afterwards the youngling again fell to the ground, when some
children found it and killed it without the least excuse for their
action. In such a case how could the parent birds distinguish between
friend and foe? They found their little one lying dead on the ground,
and mourned for it with heart-broken cries.
Some things cause a great to-do in the jay world. One day, while I was
living in Kansas, the skeleton of a jay, with the feathers still
attached, was found in the rubbish of an ash-pile in my rear yard, and
exposed to view. An hour later a half dozen or more jays were flinging
about in the peach tree above the feathers of their dead comrade,
screaming at the top of their voices, "juking" their bodies, as is
their wont when excited, and glaring at the disheveled plumes on the
ground. If it was a funeral service, it certainly was a demonstrative
one, and I do not believe that their grief and terror were affected.