A SUGGESTION FOR THE WEST BANK OF THE SCHUYLKILL, PHILADELPHIA politicians. Yet more inspiriting is the system for the entire city. Forty organizations have already joined in the movement, and comprise business leagues, educational institutions, neighborhood eye to them through street or square. societies, and municipal organizations. With this movement, one may be sure, the City Parks Association has joined with all its force and resources. The work of the Association has not been a series of successes by any means. It has so far had practically no success in securing the adoption by the city of the policy of tree-planting in the streets, the Broad Street trees being the only definite achievement in this direction, while the opportunities are numbered by the tens of thousands. While the manifestations of outdoor art in cities are many -attractive architecture, well-placed artistic sculpture, clean streets and and streets well paved, tidy back yards as well as neatly arranged front yardswhile these and other phases that will readily come to mind are exceedingly important, none is more so than the one that would secure the systematic planting of trees in streets, with such precautions as city conditions demand. Have you ever noticed the astonishing similarity of the houses that front on the Parisian boulevards? Their architecture is monotonous to a degree. But they do not impress one as monotonous, because they are simply a background, and, by reason of their light sandstone façades, an admirable background, for the eighty thousand trees of the French capital. Its public buildings, truly, are not monotonously alike, but these again are splendidly framed by the trees that lead the The movement that the Philadelphia Association has largely promoted for the location of parkways in the outlying districts will undoubtedly result in the greater appreciation of the beauty of tree-lined avenues, and, it is hoped, will bring about the general planting of trees throughout the city. In the matter of parks, again, the Association has not been as successful as the needs of the city demand, but the addition that has actually been made is worth many times the effort expended. Within the last five or six years the managers had to report for two successive years that no park or square had been added to the open spaces of the city. Yet it will be noted that the average for the fifteen years of the Association's existence has been over two a year. Two does not seem a large number, but when a park is obtained it is there forever. As stated in the last report, "a water-pipe will have to be relaid some time, a building will not last always, the pavement of the streets has to be renewed constantly, but the land that is taken for a park will last till the destruction of all things." And so, while the progress seems slow at times, while months of work without definite result seems good cause for hopelessness, in the long run the aggregate becomes greater and greater, and it appears more and more possible to make the twentiethcentury city a City Beautiful. AT BREAKFAST E Blue Jays By William Earl Dodge Scott Author of "The Story of a Bird Lover," etc. Illustrated with Drawings by Bruce Horsfall ASTERN North America to the Plains, and from the Fur Countries south to Florida and eastern Texas." This is the summary of the land inhabited by the blue jay. Such is the distribution assigned to this, one of the gayest of birds, both in dress and temperament. What an example of adaptability! For the blue jay lives in all parts of the country, where he is to be found, throughout the year. Such a diversity of environment starts at once a chain of specu lation almost fantastic. Were he like man, how varied would be, for instance, his dress! The Fur Countries, the great land about Hudson Bay, suggest Eskimolike habiliment; "Eastern North America to the Plains" would necessitate seasonal changes of garments; and the southern regions would presume a wardrobe wherein light and gauzy materials would largely figure. Yet our blue jay dons his suit of blue and white, with some black decorations, and wears it with seeming comfort over the whole area. We are, after all, Americans, even with an undigested foreign element constantly pouring in at our gates. The provincialisms of the several regions of the Atlantic seaboard are so noticeable that it is unnecessary to ask whence a new acquaintance comes. Our mind is made up at once. He is from Boston or New England; So-and-so is a Northerner; Mrs. Rittenhouse's home must be in Philadelphia; and there is no mistaking the birthplace of "Colonel Carter." I wonder if the people who understand intimately the chatter of jay talk could as readily discover, by its different inflections and cadences, the particular. point from which a given blue jay had come? Or does this vary as little as does his gaudy apparel? Personally, I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance and even friendship of these jolly birds in many localities, and I have always been struck with what a widely different attitude this bird seems to regard man under varying conditions. I remember in a little town in western Missouri that every door-yard had its pair of jays. So familiar were they, and so heedless of human beings, whom they seemed to consider in the light of friends, that all their life, even the times when its duties are most serious, the breeding season, was spent in the streets and doorways of the hamlet; in the trees and bushes in the yards the birds built their nests and reared their young; and across the street scolded and gossiped with one another even more garrulously, and certainly in larger numbers, than I have ever seen them in the wildwood. It is even so in the suburbs of some of our largest cities, St. Paul, Chicago, and doubtless many more. I recall, too, that in so thickly settled a suburb as South Orange the blue jay is ubiquitous, and nests often in trees about houses where the clatter of the local merchants in their daily visits to purvey to their customers' wants makes a bustle that seems foreign to our rollicking friend. A neighbor asked me only the other day, Why are there no blue jays in Princeton? We were in one of my bird rooms, and the question arose, suggested by four blue jays, one on each of my shoulders, one trying to untie my shoes, and another perched on my head. Quickly I replied, "Why, these blue jays are from Princeton." And then it came to me in a moment, what I had often realized before, that the blue jay as it occurs about here is not a feature of the bird world. To be sure, one can go back in the hills where I obtained the nest from which I reared the four fledglings, or down along the Millstone River, and see in the distance, at rare intervals, some of these birds. But even so, the observer must be on the lookout, for here they are singularly shy. The language of these blue-crested beauties changes, too, with the many conditions that surround them in their countless homes, built from the wilds of Canada in almost every square mile of country till they reach the land of the orange and the pine, whose shores are bathed in the golden waters of the Gulf of Mexico. One of the most frequent cries that breaks the stillness of Florida simulates the call of the redshouldered hawk. Again and again it has deceived me even long after I knew that it came from the blue jays in the yards and close about the town. Nor has any careful observer failed to notice how varied are the sounds of blue-jay language in different parts of the country. try. The sharp jay-jay-jay is characteristic wherever the birds are found, but each new region has its own kind of blue-jay talk that seems to be a tradition of the environment. I have had for a long time in my bird room, among the robins, song-thrushes, grosbeaks, and many others, a cardinal, who still graces the company. Each year he renews his scarlet livery, and each year, beginning in December, he sings his brilliant lay until the succeeding August. Here, too, were several jays. Among them was a deformed fellow who had never attained the proportions of his kind. It was my fault, for in my early days of experimentation in rearing young birds I made blunders that, while not fatal, were sure to produce unlookedfor results. These I cannot discuss in detail here, but must leave the subject for its place. Suffice to say, here was a |