The blue jay is one of the birds who remain with us throughout the entire year. His habits are not the same in all parts of his range. In some localities he is strictly a bird of the forests, while in others, he is common in our city parks and shade-trees. A relative of the crow, he is charged with robbing nests of their eggs and young birds. He is fond of nuts also, and will eat any kind that his strong bill can open. November Twenty-third Hawks and owls will respond quickly if you make a squeaking noise like a mouse, and a fox will stop and prick up his ears, then turn and proceed in the direction of the sound until he discovers its source. A weasel will dash toward the hunter, and even after it sees him, its curiosity keeps it from retreating at once. November Twenty-fourth The Thanksgiving turkey that we eat about now "is derived from the wild turkey of Mexico, which was introduced into Europe shortly after the Conquest and was thence brought to eastern North America." (Chapman and Reed.) The tips of the upper tail-coverts of the domestic and the Mexican turkey are whitish, while those of the wild turkey of eastern United States are rusty brown. [Illustration: BLUE JAYS.] Notes November Twenty-fifth A skunk knows every woodchuck and rabbit burrow in his neighborhood. In the woods he will often visit hole after hole with great precision, but in the meadows he is more apt to follow the fences, frequently cutting across a corner in order to shorten the distance to a burrow. Probably experience has taught him that rabbits are often found in woodchuck holes and that meadow mice also take shelter in them during the winter. November Twenty-sixth The tallest and heaviest of all birds is the African ostrich, but the condor of South America has the widest expanse of wing. In the United States, the California vulture, once very rare, but now steadily increasing, is broadest across the wings. The whooping crane stands the highest, and the swans are the heaviest of our birds. November Twenty-seventh Do not kill the bats that you find passing the winter in your garret, or those that fly into your house in the summer. They destroy large numbers of gnats and mosquitoes, and do no harm. The belief that they get into one's hair is ridiculous, and it is seldom that they are infested with vermin. A South American species has been known to suck the blood of horses and cattle. Notes November Twenty-eighth On returning to the nest and discovering that a cowbird has laid an egg in it, some species of birds will roll the egg out. But the phoebe, red-eyed vireo, chipping sparrow, and yellow warbler will sometimes cover the eggs with nesting material and build up the sides of the nest, thus burying its own and the cowbird's egg. Another set of eggs is then laid and the bird begins to sit, but the buried eggs are too deep to be affected by the warmth of the parent's body, so the "lazy-bird's" purpose is defeated. November Twenty-ninth