Their Eggs aiid Nests. 127 



so conspicuous about the whole process, that I can- 

 not conceive in what the pleasure consists. — Fig. 6, 

 plate V. 



JACKDAW^ — (Corvtis monedtild). 



Daw, Kae, Jack. — The chattering Jackdaw is as 

 familiar as a " household word " to us, and when one 

 visits an extensive colony of Jackdaws in the nesting 

 season, he is apt to be enabled to form a good estimate 

 of the amount of chatter a few score Jackdaws can 

 contribute. They breed in many places in the im- 

 mediate neighbourhood of my residence in very con- 

 siderable numbers, in the holes and crevices which 

 abound among craggy rocks and precipices that rise 

 high above steep wooded banks. Besides, they build 

 in ruinous buildings, in church towers or pigeon- 

 houses, in little-used chimneys, in holes in modern 

 masonry, even in deserted chambers. The pile of 

 materials amassed is simply wonderful, and really 

 they are sometimes so laid together as if intended to 

 serve no other purpose but to lengthen out the nest- 

 pile for a builder's amusement. Sticks and wool are 

 the substances usually employed, and the eggs laid 

 vary, as to number, between three and six. They are 

 of a pale bluish- white, well spotted with ash colour, 

 light brown and dark brown. — Fig. 7, plate V. 



1 In the last edition of Yarrell's Birds this bird is called the "Daw," 

 and the following one the * ' Pie. " I have known the two birds all my 

 life long as the " Jackdaw " and the *' Magpie," and for me, as for 

 most field naturalists, so they will remain. 



