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ON A SUPPOSED EGG-DAUBING HABIT 

 OCCASIONALLY EXHIBITED BY THE JACKDAW. 



BY 

 J. WIGLES WORTH, m.d. 



In Ootheca Wolleyana (Vol. I., p. 502) Professor Xewton 

 records a case, communicated to him by Mr. C. B. Wharton, 

 of four eggs of the Jackdaw {Corvus monedvla) which had 

 been found by that gentleman in a nest placed in a hole in 

 a branch of a tree, which had been so completely daubed 

 over with clay (evidently by the bird itself) that the natural 

 colour was wholly hidden. These eggs were exhibited by 

 Mr. Wharton at a meeting of the Zoological Society in 1872, 

 and were presented by him to Professor Newton in 1887. 

 The above observation has, so far as I know, remained 

 unique, but a similar instance having lately come under 

 my notice I think it worth placing on record. 



On May 6th, 1908, I visited a locality in Cheshire 

 where there is a considerable colony of Jackdaws, some- 

 what widely scattered over an extensive wooded district, 

 where the birds have taken to building open nests in trees 

 after the manner of their congeners, a practice which, as 

 is known, these birds occasionally, though rarely, resort 

 to. I climbed up to two of these nests, which were placed 

 in the branches of oak trees, and as the trees at this date 

 were, of course, bare of leaves, the nests were very con- 

 spicuous. One of these nests contained four eggs, which 

 presented nothing abnormal, but one egg was cracked 

 and empty of its contents, so that it is probable that 

 this nest was deserted. The other one, from which the 

 bird flew, contained three fresh eggs, and two of these 

 were thickly plastered all over with mud, so that the 

 ground-colour was completely concealed ; the third egg 

 had some smears of mud on it, but not sufficient to con- 

 ceal the ground-colour altogether. There was no mud or 

 clay in the nest, and the uniformity and thickness with 

 which the mud had been laid on over the entire surface 

 of the two eggs seemed incompatible with any accidental 

 fouling of the eggs, the condition of which certainly 



