them at it. The subdued tones of both birds
in such conventions assembled are very much alike and I suspect
that their polite conversation is in a common language. But I
never can prove this, for they do not fraternize. The convention
is sure to be of one feather or the other. They do not flock
together. That is no doubt just as well, for I have great respect
for the flicker. He is a whimsical old codger, very prone to talk
to himself and go through strange gymnastics in a rather
ridiculous way, but the flicker is honest. He brings up a large
family in the strictest probity and I have never known a flicker
to do a wrong thing. On the other hand, the blue jay is a thief, a
mocker and a murderer. Just now he is living honestly on nuts and
wild fruit, taking almost as many acorns as the squirrels and
making a great deal of talk about it. You would think him the most
open-hearted chap in the world, but if you will watch him
carefully in the spring you will learn things which are to his
disadvantage. You will likely find him taking a raw egg or two
with his breakfast, to the sorrow of some small bird. Later, the
fledglings are not safe from him, and if you shake a blue jay up
in a bag with a crow and then open the bag, two arrant rogues will
fly out, and it is hard telling which will have the other's tail
feathers. For all that, I rather like the blue jay. If we are
going strictly to condemn all who have a liking for an occasional
small hot bird, there will be but few of us left. At this season
he is the town crier of the wood, clanging his bell loudly at
every wood-road corner and announcing in strident monotones that
straw hats are called in and there is an exhibition sale of fall
garments at Wood & Field's.

Even in August we get the first spray on the great wave of
southward migrating warblers, and all through early September the
woods are again full of their slender, flitting forms and their
gentle voices. If you know your locality well you may mark the
very dates of the month by their coming and going. So with equal
definiteness the earlier departing of our summer residents leaves
gaps in our hearts and the woodland on pretty definite September
days. The cry-baby young of the orioles have hardly ceased to
complain about the house, making the midsummer peevish, before the
birds are flocking. They take August off the calendar with them.
On the date that I miss them and the kingbirds September first is
very near if not