CORVUS MONEDULA. 471 



He caught an old one in the burrow, cut its wings, and kept it ; 

 but it got away. I wish I had seen it, for a keen naturalist 

 here says the jackdaws which breed on the moor are a different 

 species, as their eyes are black, which I doubt. One day, when 

 rambling for eggs on the moor, a lad, along with my sons, saw a 

 daw's nest and eggs down the vent of an old hut. Not able to 

 reach the eggs, he got his head down the wide vent, lost his 

 "balance, and stuck in the flue ; he could neither get up nor down. 

 At last, when nearly suffocated, he wriggled down — saved his 

 life, but smashed the eggs. In April 1874 a pair built in a 

 small nine-holed dovecot hung against the stable at the Links 

 Cottage, and had eggs. The pigeons kept possession of the 

 other eight holes. The daws cunningly put sticks across the 

 holes on the row where their nest was. The pigeons, not to be 

 ousted, went to the other shelves. The claws, equally persistent, 

 barricaded every one of the holes. The gardener, interested in 

 seeing them breeding in the same cot as the pigeons, removed 

 the sticks ; but the daws persistently barricaded the holes as 

 often as he cleared them. This went on for days, until the 

 gardener, in f airplay to his pigeons, removed the daw's eggs and 

 nest, and stoned them away. I saw this done. In April 1879 

 when my schooner " Fear Not" was wrecked at Inchcolm, I, 

 along with one of my sons, lived on the island for a week. On 

 the 23rd we counted 22 pairs building on the S.W. end, where 

 on the rocky face of the brae are plenty of holes amongst rocks 

 and stones. The man with whom we lodged in the old 

 monastery had an old horse called " Charlie," which was casting 

 its coat, off whose back the daws got a plentiful supply of lining 

 for their nests. We saw them often on its back, but, instead of 

 resenting the liberty which the " thieving kaes" were taking 

 with his old coat, " Charlie" seemed to enjoy the scratching, for 

 he kept on grazing, paying no attention to them. I had often 

 seen them on the backs of sheep like starlings picking out the 

 kidds. They put large quantities of hair into their nests. One 

 of the vents of the S.W. corner house in Union Street was 

 choked. I got a mason to slap a hole six feet down from the 

 top. The cause of obstruction was a daw's nest. It had been 

 built on a broken bridge between two vents for some time 

 nnused. This nest was a felted mass of short hair (horses' and 

 cows'), all colours — black, white, grey, and brown — with some 

 bits of paper, pieces of letters, newspapers, and some horse 

 droppings, all matted together. The mass was 11 inches 

 diameter, roundish, and 6 inches deep — very few sticks, as it 



