One of Jakie's amusements was dancing across the back of a tall chair,
taking funny little steps, coming down hard, "jouncing" his body, and
whistling as loud as he could. He would keep up this funny performance
as long as anybody would stand before him and pretend to dance, too.
My jay was fond of a sensation. One of his dearast bits of fun was to
drive the birds into a panic. This he did by flying furiously around
the room, feathers rustling, and squawking as loud as he could. He
usually managed to fly just over the head of each bird, and as he came
like a catapult, every one flew before him, so that in a minute the
room was full of birds flying madly about trying to get out of his way.
This gave him great pleasure.
Wild blue jays, too, like to stir up their neighbors. A friend told me
of a small party of blue jays that she saw playing this kind of a joke
on a flock of birds of several kinds, robins, catbirds, thrashers, and
others. These birds were gathering the cherries on the top branches of
a big cherry tree. The jays sat quietly on another tree till the cherry
eaters were very busy eating.
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