While the jay dons an engaging attire, not much can be said in the way of eulogy for his vocal talents or acquirements. Many of his calls are harsh, penetrating, and even raucous. Frequently, too, he indulges in a great to-do over nothing, fairly splitting your ears with his noisy cries. I have said it is a to-do over nothing, though Mr. Jay may think he has the best reason in the world for making a fuss. Often espying some coveted prize on the ground in my back yard, instead of quietly dropping down and taking it, he and his companions would dash about in the trees, swing their bodies sidewise and up and down in an excited way, and scream at the top of their voices, sometimes drawing me out of the house to see what had gone wrong in Jaydom. They seemed to be determined to attract the attention of every person on the premises to the fact that they wanted that morsel on the ground, but were afraid to venture down after it. Perhaps they meant by their objurgations to test their human neighbors, to ascertain whether any of them were prowling about with a gun or a sling, ready to do them harm. If there should be any such prowlers, probably the jays meant to induce them to come out of their ambush, to show themselves in the open, and give their jayships a chance to escape. Bird psychology, as you will have occasion to note more than once, is a good deal of an enigma. How often we would give a handsome bonus to a bird if he would let us know precisely what he was thinking about! [Illustration: Blue Jay] Although no musician, the jay has quite an extensive vocal repertory. Besides his loud, challenging call, he frequently utters a series of calls that have a pensive quality and that fill the mind with an indefinable foreboding, especially on chill autumn days when all the woods are bare and gray and the wind is moaning through the boughs. Sometimes when a jay is hidden in a copse, he utters a low, scolding sputter, that seems to express the very quintessence of disgust. It is simply his way of telling you what he thinks of a man who goes prowling about without leave in the precincts of the birds. Have you ever heard the jay's brief musical roulade? It is only a wisp of melody, rarely rich and suggestive, heard a moment, then gone. You know something sweet has passed by, but something so brief and elusive that you scarcely know what it was. Long after it has dropped on your ear, it continues to haunt your memory, and you try again and again to reproduce it, but in vain. It has a kind of gurgling quality, as if the bird were pressing his notes through an aqueous lyre, if such a conception is possible. Besides, I have, on more than one occasion, heard a jay warble a soft, reserved little lay that was continued for many minutes. It sounded very like the song of the brown thrasher, much modulated and partly uttered under its breath--a sort of flowing, rythmical melody.