Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 491 



cipitous cliffs rising above the beach of Lough Neagh, at Massareene 

 deer-park, where they breed in holes, all of which were stated by 

 the gamekeeper to be the deserted burrows of rabbits. 



Church towers* and steeples, chimniesf, and occasionally trees, are 

 their ordinary nestling-places. They are generally described as late 

 breeding birds ; but a most accurate observer furnishes me with notes 

 to the effect that on the 2nd of March he had seen them carrying 

 building materials to a chimney in Belfast ; and to other chimnies in 

 the same town he on the 20th of that month, and on the 7th of April, 

 saw them carrying food, as he conceived, for their young. The first 

 foray of certain country jackdaws, in the early morning, is to the 

 town, where they are very punctual in making their appearance : on 

 the 1 1 th of June I once noted the precise time of their appearance 

 to be 45 minutes past 3 o'clock. Here they are quite innocuous ; but 

 in the country, it must be confessed, they occasionally levy contri- 

 butions. Montagu has remarked that they are " fond of cherries," to 

 the truth of which more than one of my friends' gardens about Bel- 

 fast, had they not " poor dumb mouths," could bear testimony. Of all 

 birds they are the most destructive to this fruit. A friend on one 

 occasion coming upon a number regaling in one of his cherry-trees, 

 fired at them, without reflecting on the damage he must necessarily 

 do to the tree, and five fell dead to the ground ; here they and other 

 species, particularly blackbirds (Turdus Meruld), for some years en- 

 tirely consumed the crop of cherries on a number of fine and tall 

 standard trees which could not conveniently be netted, and in conse- 

 quence of their depredations the trees were all cut down. The cherry- 

 trees in the garden of another friend, resident in the neighbourhood 

 of Belfast, were sacrificed for a similar reason. In a district well 

 known to me, jackdaws generally associate with rooks, and hence 

 participate both in the good and evil done by these birds to the farm ; 

 though, as mentioned in treating of the rook, the former greatly 

 preponderates. In a wild and uncultivated district on the northern 

 coast of the island, I have in summer remarked flocks of these birds 

 feeding on the sea-shore between tide-marks, and among fucus- cover- 

 ed stones. 



The sites chosen by the jackdaw for perching are frequently 

 amusing ; thus I have observed five of them, in flying to a vane, 

 alight with the most correct regularity on the letters N. E. W. S., 

 while the other surmounted the ball, and thus would they remain 

 stationed for some time, looking as if they were " part and parcel" 

 of the weathercock. On the head of Nelson, as he stands erect in 

 all his majesty on the top of the pillar which bears his name in 



* In the tower of a country church near Belfast, jackdaws had in the 

 course of time accumulated such quantities of sticks, that cart-loads of them 

 had to be removed before some repairs on the building could be com- 

 menced. 



t The burning of Shanes Castle (the mansion of Earl O'Neil, situated on 

 the borders of Lough Neagh), which happened about twenty years ago, was 

 said to have been caused by the dry sticks forming the nests of jackdaws in 

 one of the chimnies having caught fire. [The last fire at York Minster has 

 been attributed to the same cause. — Ed.] 



