Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/640

624 About a year ago the vines were almost entirely torn away from the house, and in consequence the English sparrow, having no place of refuge from the blue jays, has deserted this lawn. The blue jays now seem to take greater pleasure in routing a venturesome sparrow by means of their own natural call, and have recourse to the imitation of the hawk only as a last resort.

The catbird and robin seem to have learned from the blue jay the efficacy of a vigorous, angry call, and now fight successfully their own battles. Last summer a bluebird nested and sang freely in the trees. Even the wrens ventured to build on a beam in the carriage shed, although they seemed very shy and were rarely heard to sing.

In Ornithological Notes from the West, by J. A. Allen (American Naturalist, vol. vi, p. 18), I find the following references to the blue jays which were observed by him at Leavenworth, Kansas: "The blue jay (Cyanura cristatus) was equally at home and as vivacious and even more gayly colored than at the north. While he seemed to have forgotten none of the droll notes and fantastic ways one always expects from him, he has here added to his manners the familiarity that usually characterizes him in the more newly settled parts of the country, and anon surprised us with some new expression of his feelings or sentiments—some unexpected eccentricity in his varied notes, perhaps developed by his southern surroundings."

Robert Ridgway, in Volume VIII of The American Naturalist, refers to the above instance and others cited by Mr. Allen. "Mr. Allen," he writes, "has called attention to the variation in the notes of different birds at remote localities; and in this I am able to corroborate him, though I think that cases of such variation are very rare, and do not occur in more than perhaps five per cent of the species. I have only detected it in two or three species after the most careful observation, and in very many cases noticed that there was not in the minutest particular any difference between individuals of one species on opposite sides of the continent. Such is undoubtedly the case in a very great majority of the species, any seeming variation that may be observed being more probably the peculiarity of an individual rather than the manifestation of any regional impress."

The conduct of the blue jays instanced above may be used in confirmation of the three quotations made in this article, for the blue jay has certainly in this instance "developed powers of resistance at first unsuspected," which certainly aid it in its warfare with the English sparrow. Moreover, it would confirm Mr. Allen's observation in regard to the variability of the jay's note—his "unexpected eccentricity" in Kansas—if indeed Mr. Allen's observations needed other confirmation than that afforded by