Evening star., 1944-09-08
This and That
By Charles Z. Troce,pell.
"zooLoGICAL PARK

Dear Sir: Et
THANK you for defending the jay in
yours Of August as.
Il have observed the bird In this and
foreign countries and have found the
specimen good citizen and IN interest.
ing member Of our avifauna.
"Your articles are superb.
Sincerely. n. D."
And thank you. sir, for your note.
whose content viii meet the appreciation
Of many friends Of birds.
Our Jay IL too good citissn. indeed.
to meet the constant harping ana eriti.
cism which besets him.
AS pointed out here, this arose when
Audubon depicted the blue Jay In .
striking pose. holding a dripping bird
egS In his claws.
Probably no bit Of yellow in world his
tory gave rise to such i'll will - this.
From then on, 1t was the fashion 10
berate our native jay. The early cham.
pions Of birds took Audubon Is their
god. and anything he said or painted
was gospel to them.
The fact is that Audubon was very
much Of a man, and probably would
have wondered at any worship Of either
him or birds.
He did not depict tho jay to do it
harm, but merely because he happened
10 see such a picture.
Audubon was a great hunter, killing
many hundreds Of song birds Is part
Of his work and. according to at least
one authority, shooting many Just for
the fun Of shooting.
Those we're different days. Audubon
tells, in the book Of essays which ac-
companied the plates, how he attended
. night Staying Of the passenger pigeons.
At no place in his account does he
voice any protest against the unsports-
manlike slaughter. Who, in those days,
looking at 100000 pigeons, could have
realized that through such tactics, by
1914, the last one would be gone?
Americas blue jay has had many
champions, including Mark Twain,
whose account of its humor and good
will remains classic. Twain told how
one jay kept on dropping acorns down
chimney of a deserted cabin. and how
he would fly down, from time to time,
to look through the windows and see
how he was doing.
This mystified all the other jays, who
Every one who has watched this bird
intelligently knows that 1t has . gen.
uine sense Of humor, coming right out
of nature. At times we are inclined to
think of nature as terrible and unsmil-
ing, and so it proves, all too often, but
every now and then we may glimpse a
real smile coming through the clefts
The jay is born comedian. He shows
this, certainly, in the way he bends his
knees and sticks out his head when
uttering one of his war whoops.
Then, too, he can make a certain
noise which much resembles one of these
wooden rattles used by merrymakers in
parades.
He is able to COO softly, as softly as
dove, when he wants to; he gets real
delight in bomb diving 4 cat; he is .
real service to smaller birds when he
notifies them of the approach of q
hawk.
Perhaps the best service he renders
others Is by hiding food particles In
crevices of bark, and even in the ground.
There the food is discovered by brown
creepers and white-breasted nuthatches.
and many other forest birds.
All members of the jay family, where
ever found, are interesting The smaller
Canada jay, called the whiskey jack by
the loggerS. is constant source of in
terest to these rough fellows, who like
to watch it enter tent or cabin and
carefully abstract some bright object.
II peanuts are put In . bird feeding
station, the blue jays will flock to it.,
and carry away many in their cheeks
This Is q good thing, because no food
Is wasted in nature, and these peanuts
are simply distributed by the bird, who
thus becomes . philanthropist without
his knowing it. which Is undoubtedly the
best sort Of philanthroplst TO become.