ay came flying over from one of the trees of an adjacent yard, moving
in a rapid, stealthy way. First it plunged into an apple tree at the
corner of the house; then, before I could collect my wits enough to
know what was happening, it darted over to the brick wall, seized the
little wren with its bill, and bore it off. The mother wren followed,
uttering a pitiful chatter, while the little victim called loudly for
help. The blue kidnapper darted to a tree in my neighbor's yard, where
he put his booty under his claw on a limb, holding it by one slender
leg, while its body dangled below. Hoping still to rescue the little
captive, I sprang over into the adjacent yard with a loud shout and
much waving of my hands; but my vigorous efforts only caused the jay to
pick up the wren in its bill and continue its flight, and neither wren
nor jay was seen by me again. This incident furnishes unimpeachable
testimony against the character of the blue-coated Robin Hood. There
was no faltering or hesitancy in his conduct, but he seized and carried
off his little victim as if he were to the manner born, and had become
hardened by practice in depredations of the sort.

A farmer once related the following incident to me: A pair of chipping
sparrows had built a nest in a bush in his front yard. One day after
the little ones had arrived, he heard a distressed chirping coming from
the parent birds, and on going to the front yard, he caught a blue jay
in the act of picking a callow bantling from the chippie's nest.
Holding it in his bill, the jay flew across the field with his prize,
and presently returned and bore off a second nestling. By this time
the farmer's ire was aroused; he bolted into the house and secured his
shotgun, and when the marauding jay came back on the third trip on
robbery intent, the man brought him to the ground with a shot that
ended his career.

Yet the jay is not wholly bad--indeed, not even half bad. Before me
lies a valuable pamphlet entitled "The Blue Jay and His Food," written
by F. E. L. Beal, Assistant Biologist of the Department of Agriculture
at Washington, whose researches have converted him into something of an
apologist for our blue gentleman in feathers. He dissected the
stomachs of 292 jays, collected during every month of the year in
twenty-two states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. After stating
that mineral substances in the stomachs examined averaged over 14 per
cent of the total con