264 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



haunts, for they levy blackmail on the various other 

 cliff dwellers which are so unfortunate as to take up abode 

 near them. Rooks as a rule are fairly well able to look 

 after their own interests, but along the sea cliffs many of 

 the sea birds, particularly the foolish guillemots, are 

 robbed and imposed upon till their silly perseverance 

 must be sorely tried. When a male guillemot comes 

 home with fish for his female, and trustingly leaves it 

 on a shelf at their disposal, the jackdaws are down in 

 the twinkling of an eye to bear it off. The eggs of shelf 

 breeding sea birds are never safe from them. If an egg 

 appears temporarily to be without an owner, the daws 

 tip it over the edge, accompanying it as it falls, and 

 devour its contents in peace and comfort among the 

 shelves below. 



They are the wolverines of the sea cliffs, ever ready to 

 profit by the industry of others, but they take care that 

 their own eggs and families occupy the most secure 

 crevices, safe not only from bird thieves, but even from 

 the hands of the cliff climber. 



A Cornwall observer tells me a curious story which 

 serves to illustrate the cunningness and the long memory 

 of these enterprising corvines. A small colony of daws 

 had always nested in the sea cliffs near his house, but 

 during the war a pair of peregrines took up their strong- 

 hold in the same crags. Throughout the season of their 

 arrival they played great havoc among the jackdaws 

 nesting there, scaring them very effectively and knocking 

 numbers of them into the sea. The following season 

 the peregrines returned, but only two or three couples 

 of daws made their appearance. These started to build, 

 but forsook the place before their nests were completed. 

 Since then no daws have returned. The peregrines have 

 not put in an appearance for three or four seasons, but 

 the grey-headed republic has finally forsaken the place. 



