PERCHING BIRDS. 139 
monedula) is as numerous in our district as the rook, 
though it does not assemble in those large flocks in 
which the latter is seen. Its chief nesting places with 
us are not buildings, ruins, or cliffs, but the huge oaks 
which are the ornaments of our forest and parks. Every 
one of these ancient trees is more or less hollow, and 
two or three pairs, or even more, will make their abode 
in one tree; some of the cavities are very large, extend- 
ing a great distance into the trunk of the tree, although 
the entrance may be only large enough to admit the 
bird. 
When a hollow of this kind is selected it is astonish- 
ing to see what an immense mass of sticks is carried in 
for the purpose of raising the foundation to within a 
moderate distance of the entrance. I have seen cavities 
six or eight feet deep crammed with such a quantity of 
small sticks as would fill several wheelbarrows; and I 
have heard of an instance in which a small spiral stair 
in a church tower, which was. seldom used, was so 
choked up with a similar accumulation, that when the 
door was opened no entrance could be effected until a 
quantity of sticks, sufficient to fill a cart, had been re- 
moved, In their strongholds in these hollow trees they 
rear their young in safety, and as comparatively few 
attacks are made upon them their numbers are very 
large. They are as pertinacious in their forays on the 
newly-sown corn as their larger brethren, the rooks, but 
their general labours are equally beneficial to the 
husbandman, larve being their chief and favourite food. 
They are active, lively birds, and possess a large 
amount of cunning as well as impudence. I have seen 
them rob the dinner-baskets of the labourers in the 
fields ; and it was most amusing to watch the stealthy, 
