"Well, I just wanted to tell you," said the Jay, "that if it hadn't been for an ancestor of mine he wouldn't have discovered it in 1492—later perhaps, but not in 1492."
"Oh, indeed!" said John Dolittle. "Tell me more about it." And he pulled a notebook out of his pocket and started to write.
"Well," said the Jay, "the story was handed down to me by my mother, who heard it from my grandmother, who got it from my great-grandmother, and so on, way back to an ancestor of ours who lived in America in the fifteenth century. Our kind of birds in those days did not come across to this side of the Atlantic, neither summer nor winter. We used to spend from March to September in the Bermudas and the rest of the year in Venezuela. And when we made the autumn journey south we used to stop at the Bahama Islands to rest on the way.
"The fall of the year 1492 was a stormy season. Gales and squalls were blowing up all the time and we did not get started on our trip until the second week in October. My ancestor had been the leader of the flock for a long time. But he had grown sort of old and feeble and a younger bird was elected in his place to lead the Golden Jays to Venezuela that year. The new leader was a conceited youngster, and because he had been chosen he thought he knew everything about navigation and weather and sea crossings.
"Shortly after the birds started they sighted, to their great astonishment, a number of boats sailing on a westward course. This was about half way between the Bermudas and the Bahamas. The ships were much larger than anything they had ever seen before. All they had been accustomed to up to that time were little canoes, with Indians in them.
"The new leader immediately got scared and gave the order for the Jays to swing in further toward the land, so they wouldn't be seen by the men who crowded these large boats. He was a superstitious leader and anything he didn't understand he kept away from. But my ancestor did not go with the flock, but made straight for the ships.
"He was gone about twenty minutes, and presently he flew after the other birds and said to the new leader: 'Over there in those ships a brave man is in great danger. They come from Europe, seeking land. The sailors, not knowing how near they are to sighting it, have mutinied against their admiral. I am an old bird and I know this brave sea-farer. Once when I was making a crossing—the first I ever made—a gale came up and I was separated from my fellows. For three days I had to fly with the battering wind. And finally I was blown eastward near the Old World. Just when I was ready to drop into the sea from exhaustion I spied a ship. I simply had to rest. I was weather-beaten and starving. So I made for the boat and fell half dead upon the deck. The sailors were going to put me in a cage. But the captain of the ship—this same navigator whose life is now threatened by his rebellious crew in those ships over there—fed me crumbs and nursed me back to life. Then he let me go free, to fly to Venezuela when the weather was fair. We are land birds. Let us now save this good man's life by going to his ship and showing ourselves to his sailors. They will then know that land is near and be obedient to their captain."
"Yes, yes," said the Doctor. "Go on. I remember Columbus writing of land birds in his diary. Go on."
"So," said the Jay, "the whole flock turned and made for Columbus's fleet. They were only just in time. For the sailors were ready to kill their admiral, who, they said, had brought them on a fool's errand to find land where there was none. He must turn back and sail for Spain, they said, or be killed.