mischievous propensities, their cheerful air and active movements
often render them favourites. The confidence they
so freely shew in mixing with the human community makes
them looked upon almost as members of it, and, like some
other birds that attach themselves to man, they have gained
a familiar name, the particular form of which has doubtless
been prompted by the reiterated call-note of their young,
closely resembling the word “ jack” as pronounced in many
English dialects.* Nearly every cathedral and castle, ruined
or not, is more or less beset by a host of Jackdaws, and
there is hardly a church offering a secure retreat wherein
they do not find a lodging. They have utilized Stonehenge,
building their nests, as Gilbert White first observed, in the
interstices of its prodigious blocks, and they frequently
possess themselves of crannies in the face of a chalk-pit or
quarry. If the dwellings we inhabit do not commonly harbour
them it is only because convenient recesses are there
wanting; but they often take advantage of chimneys which
to the householder’s annoyance are occasionally found stopped
up by the quantity of sticks they bring together. Away from
man’s works they occupy holes and cavities in rocks, as well
as hollow trees, and these must be deemed their most natural
breeding-places, for though they will find quarters under
cover of the accumulated masses of nests in a rookery, and,
failing other shelter, will make rabbit-burrows serve their
purpose, the instances in which they will build or occupy a
nest open to the sky are very few in number.f Their persistence
in collecting sticks with which to construct the nest
is one of their most curious characteristics, but at the same
time, as Jardine remarks, they often display a great want of
instinct, for they will continue to drop the sticks down a
wide hole, where perhaps not one will remain, until a huge
heap is formed beneath. Waterton even goes further than
* “ Daw ” also is obviously a ease of onomatopoeia.
f Besides a case reported to Mr. Morris by Mr. G. B. Clarke, tbe only recorded
instances to which reference can here be made are those by Messrs. Hepburn,
H. T. Frere and Alston (Zool. pp. 185, 823 and 9572), and of them tbe second
only is quite satisfactory. In this case the nest was about thirty feet from the
ground, close to the bole of a silver-fir, composed of twigs and about a foot thick.
this, and asks why they should use sticks at all in a hole
which is already fit to support every kind of material proper
for a nest ? There is much point in this question, for few
birds that ordinarily build in holes are at the pains of carrying
thither the rough stuff that forms the foundation or outworks
of the nest, so necessary where the structure rests on
the boughs of trees, but so useless when a firm base already
exists. But this is not all, for in conveying these sticks*
to their destination Daws shew a singular lack of ingenuity.
They may carefully balance each stick in the beak for
convenient transport to the hole, but the stick is held by
the middle and carried crossways, so that arrived at the entrance
its length and rigidity often hinder its introduction,
for they do not perceive that to effect this it should be turned
endways, and they may be seen for a quarter of an hour
vainly attempting an impossibility until the stick slips from
their grasp, and another is fetched probably to be let go in
like manner. Yet all Daws are not equally stupid, and
Wolley observed (Zool. p. 1774) that in a large settlement at
Bearwood the nests were curiously adapted to circumstances,
some consisting only of a little wool, while others had a
monstrous pile of sticks to stop any inconvenient cavity of the
tree.f The quantity amassed is indeed occasionally wonder-
* The collecting of these sticks is, as may be imagined, a toilsome task, and
the birds are not slow to avail themselves of any they can get, as gardeners often
find to their cost, for the pegs used to mark their plants are frequently carried
off by Daws. Denson has recounted (Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 1, vi. p. 397) how,
from 1815 to 1818, the old Botanic Garden at Cambridge, situated in the
middle of the town and now the site of the Museums and Lecture Rooms, was
thus regularly robbed of its labels, which were subsequently found in the towers
and chimneys of the neighbouring buildingsBeighteen dozens being taken out of
a single chimney on one occasion. They were mostly deal laths, about nine
inches long and an inch or more broad. A bird would grasp one edgewise in its
beak, and if the soil was light, it could usually draw it out with but little difficulty
: but if otherwise, it would pull the label first to one side, then to the
other; and either, by persevering thus, effect its extraction, or tire itself and
leave it.
+ Wolley noticed at the same place that on the first day of his visiting several
scores' of nests none of the eggs were covered, but that on Jhe two succeeding
days some of those which had before been examined had their eggs partly or
wholly covered by the lining, with the intent, it is supposed, to conceal them.