All silently and piously it lay Upon the kindly bosom of the earth. It blessed the warmth with which the noonday sun Made fruitful all the ground; it loved the dews, The moonlight and the snow, the frost and rain And all the change of seasons as they passed. It sank into the bosom of the soil. The bursting life, enclosed within its husk, Broke through its fetters; it extended roots And twined them freely in the grateful ground; It sprouted up and looked upon the light; The sunshine fed it; the embracing air Endowed it with vitality and strength; The rains of heaven supplied it nourishment. And so from month to month, and year to year, It grew in beauty and in usefulness, Until its large circumference enclosed Shelter for flocks and herds; until its boughs Afforded homes for happy multitudes-- The dormouse and the chaffinch and the jay And countless myriads of minuter life; Until its bole, too vast for the embrace Of human arms, stood, in the forest depths, The model and glory of the wood. Its sister acorn perished in its pride.
In the October number of BIRDS AND ALL NATURE was an article containing a list of the enemies of song birds and ordering their banishment, if one would enjoy the presence of the little songsters. Included in the list were the blue jays. There was also an article entitled, "A new Champion for the English Sparrow."
I always rejoice when someone comes forward in defense of the despised class, finding them not wholly faulty. The same hand created all, and surely each must be of some use. I feel like saying something in favor of the blue jay. I am sure that all will acknowledge that the jay has a handsome form and rare and beautiful plumage, which at least makes him "a thing of beauty;" he may not be "a joy forever," but surely a delight to the eye. Formerly my home was in northern Iowa, living many years in one place in a town of about 6,000 inhabitants. Our lawn was spacious for a town, filled with shrubbery and trees, both evergreen and deciduous. We did not encourage cats, usually keeping dishes of water here and there for the accommodation of the birds, and other attractions which they seemed to appreciate, as numerous migratory birds came each season, taking up their abode with us, to their evident enjoyment and giving us much pleasure. The jays were always with us, were petted and as they became friendly and tame, naturally we were much attached to them. The limb of a tree growing very close to a back veranda had been sawed off and a board nailed on the top forming a table, where we daily laid crumbs and a number of jays as regularly came after them. They were fond of meat and almost anything from the table. I found the jay to be a provident bird; after satisfying his appetite he safely buried the remainder of his food. I often noticed them concealing acorns and other nuts in hollow places in the trees, and noticed also that they were left till a stormy day which prevented them from finding food elsewhere as usual. I saw one bury a bit of meat under leaves near a dead flower twig; there came a rather deep fall of snow that night, but the bird managed to find it the next day with little difficulty and flew off with a cry of delight. The jay nested on the grounds, but that did not seem to prevent other birds from coming in great numbers and variety and making their little homes there also. I recall one year which was but a repetition of most of the years. The jays had a nest in a crab apple tree, a cat bird nested in a vine close to the house, a robin came familiarly to one of the veranda pillars in front of the house and built her solid nest of mud and grass. A brown thrush took a dense spruce for her nesting-place. A blackbird, to my surprise, built a nest in a fir tree. A grosbeak built a nest on a swaying branch of a willow at the back of the lot, and a bluebird occupied a little house we had put in a walnut tree for her convenience.