nto the upland woods. Now
that I have begun to notice it I see that the coloring is touching
the underleaves of the hillside birches, those nearest the stem,
and that perhaps one in five has the same cool, pale yellow fire
alight. Thus rapidly does the conflagration spread from swamp to
hillside, from the shade of the grove to its topmost boughs and
before we know it the year will have once more set the world on
fire.

As far those other signs, there is a whole calendar of bird voices
and bird movements that might well give us the dates, day by day.
To me the first warning of the passing of summer comes in the
tin-trumpet notes of the blue jays. While the nesting season is on the
blue jay is as dumb as an oyster. The woods may be full of him and
his tribe, but never an old bird says a word. After the young can
fly you may hear them if you slip quietly along in the pine woods.
You have to be pretty near though, to do it. They sit in a family
group in the treetops and complain, under the breath, hungrily. It
is not until the young are well grown, the moulting season is over
and the summer pretty nearly the same that any blue jay gets his
voice. Then, almost as suddenly as the coming of autumn coloring
in the trees the racket begins. You may not have seen a blue jay
in the woods for months. Suddenly they appear in flocks, swooping
down on the orchard in brand new uniforms of conspicuous blue,
white and black, yelling tooting and chattering. They have been
shy and careful. They are now tame and reckless. They troop into
the pasture after the wild cherries which they eat with chattering
and scolding. On vibrant limbs they give spirit rappings in
imitation of a woodpecker. Then they laugh and scream about it.
Hearing them we always say, "How fallish it sounds."

The blue jay has not only a whole vocabulary of his own, both in
conversation, from twittering to oratory, and in calls from
assembly cries and notes of warning to screams of derision and
defiance, but he is an imitator in certain lines. He will imitate
the red-shouldered hawk and the sparrow hawk and I suspect him of
mixing it in conversation with the flicker. Often at this time of
year I hear a subdued, rather sweet-voiced murmur in the wood as
if a ladies' sewing society was just beginning to get busy pulling
out the bastings. I know very well it is a convention composed of
blue jays or flickers, but it is not so easy to tell which until I
slip up and surprise