“But late in May the Crows prepared to raise their second brood, mending their old nest, and Jacob said, ‘Something is robbing the nests in the orchard; I think surely it is the Crows and Jays, for when they come around all the song-birds chase them and say right out as plain as possible, “They’re thieves—they’re thieves!”’ So I watched from behind the blinds yonder, and in every spot where I could see into the tree-tops and be unobserved—and then I knew it was true that the Crows and Jays were detestable cannibals. “One single morning I saw the Crow take three robin’s eggs and bring a tiny little robin squab to his mate on the nest, and one day, as a Crow flew high over my head, I thought I saw something strange in its beak, and clapped my hands sharply, when—what do you think? A poor little half-dead Wood Thrush, big enough to have its eyes open and some feathers, dropped almost on my upturned face, and thus the Crow was caught in the very act of killing. So, then, I said to myself, we can put tar on the seed-corn and protect our young chickens with wire, but we cannot make up for the death of young nestlings and the loss of eggs. I will not have the Crows shot, because they do good in the far meadows and hayfields, but the lonely woods, where few small birds nest, is the place for them. I shall see that they never again build in my garden orchard or woods, and if every one will do this, the danger to song-birds will be less, and in the winter, when they come about, there are no nestlings to be eaten. “It was not long after that, owing to the evidence of my own eyes, I was obliged to say the same thing to the Blue Jay. “The Wise Men say that, take it all in all, the Crow should have a chance, and that part of his faults come from our own shiftlessness. This is true, but if he feeds upon song-birds the Crow must go. _The Blue Jay_ “That the Blue Jay is a handsome fellow goes without saying, as well as that he has plenty of assurance and is somewhat of a bully. We may imagine that he knows that his uniform of blue, gray, and white, with black bands and markings, is very becoming, and if any one of you should tell me that he had seen a Jay admiring his reflection in a pond or little pool, I should be ready to believe him. Certain it is that not one of our birds, not even the glowing Scarlet Tanager, presents a more neat and military appearance. [Illustration: BLUE JAY] Order—Passeres Family—Corvidæ Genus—Cyanocitta Species—Cristata “The only awkward thing about the Blue Jay is his flight. Although alert and agile in slipping through the trees, when he takes to wing his progress seems laboured, as if either his body was too heavy for his wings, or that the wings were stiff.