MAGPIE. 89 
black with them, and have been continually a witness to the 
very extensive damage done to the potato crop just when the 
young tubers were in most active growth and most susceptible of 
harm. Still, a few precautions will suffice to protect both corn- 
field and potato-crop during the brief space while protection is 
necessary, and the balance of good done is so greatly on the 
predominating side, that the Rook may well continue to be 
protected. Rook shooting has charms for many. For myself I 
seem to see cruelty so conspicuous about the whole process, that 
I cannot conceive in what the pleasure consists.— fig. 6, plate V. 
121. JACKDAW—(Corvus monedula). 
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 forma 
good estimate of the amount of chatter a few’ score Jackdaws can 
contribute. They breed in many places in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of my residence in very considerable 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 asually employed, 
and the eggs laid vary, as to number, between three and six. 
They are of a pale biuish-white, well spotted with ash colour 
light brown and dark brown.—Fig. 7, plate V. 
122. MAGPIE—(Pica caudata). 
Pyet, Pianet, Madge, Mag.—A very wary, crafty, shy bird the 
