It is true that the jay is not delicate in his appetite. He cannot, like the ethereal maiden whom Burton mentions, subsist for months on the smell of a rose. I knew one old gentleman, to be sure, who secured a brief respite from care, and achieved a state of mild hilarity, by applying his nose to the mouth of a whiskey jug. But the jay enjoys not these olfactive refections. He needs more substantial food. He is omnivorous; and out of that important characteristic springs his most reprehensible trait: he eats little birds. One morning last summer I got up rather earlier than usual to transplant some asters before the sun should come out hot. It was a calm, breezeless morning, with scarcely a sound to disturb the cool quietude, except the song of a robin on the top of the old maple. Heaven be praised! we have no trolley cars in our village, and no factories. Suddenly there broke out in the alley, the wildest commotion imaginable. It sounded as though the sparrows from five counties were there, and had eaten of the insane root. The air was filled with shrill cries, chirps, and excited chatterings. I rushed to the fence, my fingers all mud, and looked over. In the midst of a flock of sparrows forty or more in number, all hopping about distractedly but none daring to attack him, stood a big blue jay with his crest militantly erect. From time to time he pecked at something, but what that something was, like Peterkin, I could not well make out. At every stroke of his strong black beak the cries of the sparrows shrilled louder; whenever he paused and looked around in his truculent contempt, their frenzied crescendos somewhat abated. Curious, I drew nearer and discovered that the object of his unpleasant attention was a young sparrow, a mere fledgeling, scarcely old enough to be out of the nest. He was murderously pecking it in the eye. The wee helpless thing fluttered weakly in its agony and cheeped piteously. I grabbed up an empty fruit jar that had protected a rose cutting from the blasts of winter, and hurled it at the jay. He flew screaming to a sour cherry tree a short distance away, from which safe vantage point he cursed me with every oath and revilement in his scandalous vocabulary. The little sparrow I put out of its misery.