278 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



by a narrow winding staircase, at no time easy, to the 

 summit of the tower, is rendered anything but safe by 

 the number of sticks and other rubbish dropped by the 

 jackdaws through the different apertures. Besides the 

 towers of our churches in town or country, and other 

 venerable edifices, lay or ecclesiastical, these birds fre- 

 quent the holes of decayed trees for nesting purposes, 

 and at Hunstanton the crevices in the chalk-cliff facing 

 the sea. In autumn and winter they collect together in 

 flocks, and are seen feeding with the rooks in fields and 

 marshes, and like them are extremely partial to the 

 margins of brackish waters and other localities affording 

 a supply of shell-fish and such like marine sustenance. 

 With the rooks also they roost at night in the big 

 woods. On one occasion during severe weather, in 

 January, 1862, I observed an immense flock, late in the 

 afternoon, coming direct from the city, and making 

 apparently for Earlham or Cossey, as though all the 

 jackdaws in Norwich had simultaneously left their 

 steeples, after foraging for the day, and were together 

 hastening to some accustomed roosting place. 



This species, like others of its class, is by no 

 means particular in its diet, and it occasionally 

 exhibits carnivorous tastes worthy of the grey-backed 

 crow. The following instances of the latter in this 

 district are recorded by Messrs. Gurney and Fisher in 

 the " Zoologist" for 1847 : — " One of these birds was 

 shot by a gamekeeper, from the nest of a missel-thrush, 

 whilst in the act of devouring one of the young birds. 

 Another was observed in pursuit of a young pheasant ; 

 the latter soon squatted, when the jackdaw hopped 

 upon, and immediately began to peck it, but was shot 

 before it had done any further mischief.*' Mr. Hunt 

 also brings a further charge against them in his 

 " British Ornithology" (vol. ii., p. 47), where he says — 

 ''They sometimes do much mischief in dove-houses. 



