132 DARK— DA W 



and perhaps in other districts {cf. Cordeaux, Zoologist., 1883, 

 pp. 228, 229). 



DARE, a local name applied to some species of Tern. 



DARTER, see Snake-bird. 



DASSIE-V ANGER (Coney -catcher), the Dutch name for an 

 Eagle in South Africa, adopted by English i-esidents — the 

 "Dassie" being Hyrax capensis (Layard, JB. S. Africa, p. 11). 



DAW (Old Low Germ. Doha), doubtless from the bird's cry, as 

 seems also to be the nickname "Jack" commonly prefixed.^ The 

 Jackdaw, to use its vulgar and redundant name, is the smallest as 

 it is, perhaps, the best known in Britain of the Corvidm (Crow) ; 

 for, though much less numerous than the RoOK, it inhabits the 

 outskirts of even large towns as well as the country ; and, from its 

 diverting manners, and its aptitude for imitating the sounds it 

 hears, is often kept in captivity more or less modified. In its 

 natural state it differs from most of the Cormdai in the choice it 

 makes of breeding-quarters, nearly always placing its nest in some 

 hollow tree or convenient corner in a building — a church-tower 

 (from its being seldom ascended) especially aftbrding a secure posi- 

 tion. It will equally make itself a home in a rabbit-burrow, a sea- 

 girt cliff, or contrive to find a suitable receptacle for its progeny 

 among the sticks that form the base of some huge Rook's nest 

 which has been accumulating for years. Gamekeepers view it in 

 great despite, for it is undoubtedly ready to rob the eggs of other 

 birds when occasion offers ; but it is as omnivorous as a Rook in 

 feeding, and there is scarcely a flock of that species that is not at- 

 tended by more or fewer Daws, who act as the light company of 

 the heavier regiment. The normal glossy black plumage of the 

 Corvidx is in the Daw, when adult, diversified by its having the 

 hinder part of the head of a delicate ashy -grey colour,- while 

 examples from South-Eastern Europe and Asia Minor, having the 

 nape of a silvery white, have been called C. collaris, and further to 

 the eastward the birds have not only the collar broader and of a 

 pure white, but the lower parts of the body white also. These 

 belong to the species called by Pallas C. dauuricus. 



^ Perhaps the earliest instance of nicknaming birds is to be found in Lang- 

 land's Piers ilie Plowman, written soon after 1400, where the Spap.row is called 

 "Philip" ; but the practice, as all know, extended, and Swift in his Descrip- 

 tion of a SalamaTider thus mentions it : — 



" As mastitf-dogs in moderu phrase are 

 Call'd Pompey, Scipio, and Caesar ; 

 As pyes and daws are often stil'd 

 With Christian nicknames like a child." 



- It is only the hinder part of the head that wears this light tint, a fact 

 which renders improbable that the " russet-pated choughs " of Shakespear {Mids.- 

 Night's Bream, Act iii. Sc. 2) were birds of this species (see Chough). 



