Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 1 [January 1902]

“Why didst thou tarry so long, my brave?” she finally murmured, as she fondly toyed with the soft mottled feathers on his broad breast.

He lifted his feathery horns angrily at the remembrance. “The blue terror caught sight of me as I looked forth from the beautiful dark home in the dead oak tree which I have selected for thee, my beloved. It was just as the gaudy daylight was giving way to the pleasing blackness of night that I came forth, thinking all the little day flyers would have been asleep, but a belated bluejay saw me and, with lifted crest and shrill voice, raised the hue and cry. The robin left his mud daubed nest in the orchard across the road, the titmouse from his home in the knot hole of the rail fence, the nuthatch, the butcher bird and hosts of others all came, with piercing scoldings, sharp pecks and fluttering wings. I might have gone back into the darkness of our new home and so saved myself further annoyance, but, light of the world,” as he rolled his eyes fondly toward her, “I wanted not the blue terror to know where thou wouldst lay thine eggs – he is an egg thief, himself, thou knowest – so I sailed away into the open, and, O, the clamor they raised. And see,” showing two or three broken feathers, “what the bold blue terror has done, the strong voiced and strong winged bluejay.”

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