Evening star., 1948-11-30
This and That
BY Charles E.. Trace,1ell

Here Is man, writing from Arlington who
wants to get rid of the jays:
I know they are one of your favorite birds.
but they are not so with me and family. and
we hate their CUTS as they say, and II YOU can
tell us how to get rid of them we will be
satisfied
They scream around so and drive the other
birds away from our place and then they say
they kill other birds and besides this they
are pigs; they eat too much and when this is
combined with the damn noise I think the best
thing to do is to drive them off.
Would not wish to kill these so-and-sos but
II there is anything We might do short of
murder to keep them off, we'll, you tell us and
we will do it pronto.
III we did not have these jays. think we
might have more birds, or how about it? Let
me know and will be indebted to you
Yours ETC."
This misguided person should use his eyes
more, his hate complex less
All Of us, when it comes to that, should be
particularly careful in whom or what we hate
Hate is a bad emotion.
1t is singularly rife in this day and age and
every one who honestly tries to be person of
good will, despite many failures. should realize
that the popular world wide current is toward
the deep end.
1t is easy to be swept into the current. Let
us Oil Uc NicA Cuul, Ill Our JuuBHlcIltS Ol OtNeTS,
and realize that many fine men and women,
and even children, are victims of this current
Of i'll will. envy and hate.
We can see this easily, when 1t comes to
such small thing as jaybird. Why hate
such little one? The jaybird is real Ameri-
can, beauty, fine fellow to have on our side,
but what does his critic think?
He thinks it is a mutt, something to keep
away something that drives away other and
smaller BIRDS
He is mistaken on all counts, although per-
haps he will not believe us at first But let
him go to his windows, and pose there for an
hour, and keep his eyes fairly fixed on the
jays, and we can be kicked from Eleventh
street and PENNSYLVANIA avenue to the Capitol
and back If he doesn't find them just as inter-
esting as any other songbird.
What is more, he will find them peaceful,
though admittedly noisy. They seldom molest
any other species, despite the tales of mauraud-
ing at nesting time.
No doubt they do take few eggs, now and
then, and may sometimes be seen-although
not often-killing baby bird Personally,
we have never seen such a sight, and never
expect to see it.
The jay is no hog, either, about food.
He does not eat nearly as much as one might
expect, seeing his large body lusty behavior
and joy in life.
The fact is that he likes to take away and
hide some Of the food. He will do this espe-
cially with peanuts in the shell, because he is
an intelligent bird and somehow knows that
such fodder will bury well, without decay.
You see, he likes to hide away foods, to find
them later.
In this way, he manages to do a good deed
because most of this buried food is found by
other and smaller birds.
Peanuts he secretes in leaves, covering them
dantily, where squirrels and leaf-scratching
birds discover them in time of need.
Bits of nuts, seeds and others he takes to
trees and stuffs in crevices of bark. where they
may be found by nuthatches, chickadees and
their small friends Of country and suburbs.
Less jays in no way would give our good
friend more birds. The simple fact is that
the little ones are not in the least afraid Of
this big buffer. They know from ancestral
experience, that his bark Is truly worse than
his bite.
The jay is the first to call "hawk, hawk"
when the long wings of those Hitlers Of the
airways send shadows across the yard
Our best suggestion to our frantic reader is
to forget his spleen, and substitute for 1t intel
ligent interest. Once he does this, he will dis
cover, as many one has before him, that the
blue jay Is bird to be proud of, to laugh at
and with, to initiate as real American who
has not forgotten the value Of bluff in a wild