FRIENDSHIP IN ANIMALS 73 



ing appeared to be not that he had been well treated 

 but because he had formed an extraordinary attach- 

 ment, not, as one would naturally suppose, to the 

 boy who had rescued and fed him but to another, 

 smaller boy, who lived in the next cottage ! It was 

 quite unmistakable ; the bird, free to go away if 

 he liked, began to spend his time hanging about the 

 cottage of his chosen little friend. He wanted to be 

 always with him, and when the children went to school 

 in the morning the daw would accompany them, and 

 flying into the schoolroom after them settle himself 

 on a perch where he would sit until the release came. 

 But the proceedings were always too long for his 

 patience, and from time to time he would emit a loud 

 caw of remonstrance, which would set the children 

 tittering, and eventually he was turned out and the 

 door shut against him. He then took to sitting on 

 the roof until school was over, whereupon he would 

 fly down to the shoulder of his little friend and go 

 home with him. In the same way he would follow 

 his friend to church on Sunday morning, but even 

 there he could not repress his loud startling caw, 

 which made the congregation smile and cast up its 

 eyes at the roof. My friend the vicar, who by the 

 by is a lover of birds, could not tolerate this, and 

 the result was that the daw had to be caught and con- 

 fined every day during school and church hours. 



There are three or four more jackdaw anecdotes 

 among those I am compelled to leave out. No doubt 

 some species of birds are much more capable of these 



