entleman who was big around the waist, Solomon Owl was
surprisingly quick. But Jasper Jay was even quicker. And it was lucky
for him that he left when he did, for Solomon felt very, very hungry. He
had had nothing to eat since dawn.

But he made his rush in vain. Missing Jasper Jay by a few inches, he
crashed head foremost into a tree before he could stop. And the pain in
the top of his head made him hoot at the top of his voice. Perhaps he
was angry, too.

Anyhow, to Jasper Jay the horrid cry sounded as if it were just behind
him. He never knew before that he could fly so fast. And some of his
friends, who saw a blue streak in the twilight, did not even recognize
him.

For several days afterward, Noisy Jake, whom Jasper passed in his
headlong flight, talked about the blue lightning he had seen when he was
going home from the nutting party. And since nobody could prove that he
was mistaken, no one was so foolish as to dispute him.

And that was the way that Jasper Jay learned something about Solomon
Owl's eyes--and something about manners, too.

XIII

TEASING A SINGER

THOUGH there were many feathered folk in Pleasant Valley, Jasper Jay did
not care to have much to do with any except his own family. Unless he
had other business that was more urgent he was always ready to join a
troop of noisy blue jays bent on some mischief. But if there were none
of his own kind about, Jasper usually preferred to be alone.

Strangely enough, Jasper did not even like to hear other birds singing.
He claimed that their voices were altogether too sweet.

"It's sickening to hear their songs," he used to say. "Somebody ought
to put a stop to these concerts that we have to listen to all summer
long." And he was always telling people that what he liked was a good,
loud, jarring call, that you could hear without any trouble. "These
soft, musical notes are all nonsense!" he declared.

Jasper held it to be his duty, whenever he chanced to come across one of
those forest concerts, to seat himself in a nearby tree and make as much
noise as he could, in order to interrupt the singing.

Of course, such actions on the part of Jasper Jay did not make the
songsters of Pleasant Valley like him any better. But Jasper never
minded that.

"I shall keep right on interrupting these singing societies," he said,
"until I've put an end to such nuisances."

Naturally, that was only his way of looking at such matters. As for the
other bird