with one sticking out at the tip. Thus loaded he
flew off, but was back in two minutes for another supply. The
red-headed woodpecker, who claimed to own the corn-field, seemed to
think this a little grasping, and protested against such a wholesale
performance; but the overworked jay simply jumped to one side when he
came at him, and went right on picking up corn. When he had time to
spare from his arduous duties, he sometimes indulged his passion for
burying things by carrying a grain off on the lawn with an air of most
important business, and driving it into the ground, hammering it well
down out of sight.

The blue jay's manner of getting over the ground was peculiar, and
especially his way of leaving it. He proceeded by high hops, bounding up
from each like a rubber ball; and when ready to fly he hopped farther
and bounded higher each time, till it seemed as if he were too high to
return, and so took to his wings. That is exactly the way it looked to
an observer; for there is a lightness, an airiness of bearing about this
apparently heavy bird impossible to describe, but familiar to those who
have watched him.

Some time after the blue jay family had taken to roaming about the
grounds, I had a pleasing little interview with one of them in the
raspberry patch. This was a favorite resort of the neighboring birds,
where I often betook myself to see who came to the feast. This morning
I was sitting quietly under a spruce-tree, when three blue jays came
flying toward me with noise and outcries, evidently in excitement over
something. The one leading the party had in his beak a white object,
like a piece of bread, and was uttering low, complaining cries as he
flew; he passed on, and the second followed him; but the third seemed
struck by my appearance, and probably felt it his duty to inquire into
my business, for he alighted on a tree before me, not ten feet from
where I sat. He began in the regular way, by greeting me with a squawk;
for, like some of his bigger (and wiser?) fellow-creatures, he assumed
that a stranger must be a suspicious personage, and an unusual position
must mean mischief. I was very comfortable, and I thought I would see if
I could not fool him into thinking me a scarecrow, companion to those
adorning the "patch" at that moment. I sat motionless, not using my
glass, but looking him squarely in the eyes. This seemed to impress him;
he ceased squawking, and hopped a twig nearer, stopped, turned one