JACKDAW. 557 
~ Caucasus, and breeds throughout Turkestan, although it does not appear 
to inhabit Persia. Colonel Swinhoe found it breeding at Kandahar ; it 
also breeds in Cashmere, and is a winter visitant to the plains of North- 
west India. 
Examples from Western Europe have the collar grey. ‘To the east 
birds having exceptionally white collars are frequent 5 and in Central 
Siberia, between Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, a new form appears, slightly 
smaller on an average than our Jackdaw, and having the nape, the sides 
of the neck, the lower breast, and the belly white. This species (C’. dauricus) 
extends eastwards as far as North China, and is everywhere found in 
company with C. neglectus, together with intermediate forms between the 
two, no doubt produced by interbreeding. The thoroughbred dark form 
differs in colour as well as in size from our Jackdaw, the grey on the head 
and neck being nearly obsolete. Ornithologists differ as to the explana- 
tion of these facts. Middendorff and Dybowsky consider the dark form 
(C. neglectus) an immature bird; and Dybowsky, who found it breed- 
ing, states that it does not obtain the mature dress until the third year. 
Swinhoe, on the other hand, states that he has taken young birds, with the 
characteristic markings of the adult, from the nest; and there is an 
example in his collection to bear out this statement. Probably Dybowsky 
was in error. 
Like the House-Sparrow, the Jackdaw possesses the peculiar aptitude 
of speedily adapting itself to new surroundings, and often breeds in the 
strangest of places. It makes itself perfectly at home even in the great 
metropolis, where in certain localities it may be regularly seen amongst 
the grimy chimneys, or in company with the Rooks in the parks and public 
gardens. We also find Jackdaws in the forest nestling amongst the grand 
old oaks ; we see them in the broken battlements of castles and in ruined 
abbeys, or amongst the gothic architecture of cathedrals and churches ; 
whilst in the mountain-limestone districts almost every rock at all suitable 
for the purpose contains their nests. On the sea-coast Jackdaws are also 
common birds on all the bold rocks where sea-birds congregate. At Flam- 
borough the Jackdaws are very abundant. A republican might call them 
the aristocracy of the cliffs. Like the modern noble or the monks of the 
middle ages, they contrive to eat the fat of the land without any osten- 
sible means of living. They apparently claim an hereditary right in the 
cliffs ; for they catch no fish and do no work, but levy blackmail on the silly 
Guillemots, stealing the fish which the male has brought to the ledges for 
the female, upsetting the egg of some unfortunate bird who has left it for a 
short time, and devouring as much of the contents as they can get hold of 
when the egg is broken on some ledge of rock or in the sea. 
In its habits the Jackdaw very closely resembles the Rook, with which 
bird it freely associates ; and its movements are just as regular. It is 
