YOUNG JACKDAW. 



BRITISH BIRDS' NESTS. 191 



JACKDAW. Also DAW. 



(Corvus monedula.) 

 Order PASSERES ; Family CORVIDJE (CROWS). 



Description of Parent Birds. 

 Length about fourteen inches. 

 Beak of medium length, strong, 

 nearly straight, and black. Irides 

 greyish- white. Crown black with 

 a purple sheen ; nape and back 

 of neck leaden-grey. Back, wings, 

 upper tail-coverts, and tail black, 

 glossed with blue, violet, and 

 green. All the under-parts are 

 dusky-black. Legs, toes, and claws black. 



The female is a trifle smaller than the male, 

 and the grey on the back of her neck is less pro- 

 nounced. 



Situation and Locality. Holes in cliffs, church 

 steeples, towers, old ruins, barns, in chimneys, and 

 hollow trees, pretty generally throughout the 

 British Isles. Our illustration is of a nest in the 

 ventilation hole of a stone barn. It was slightly 

 drawn forward, and light reflected upon it with a 

 looking-glass, in order to take the photograph. 

 The largest colony I have ever met with is near 

 Armathwaite Castle, in Cumberland. 



Materials. Sticks, straw, moss, feathers, wool, 

 down, and all sorts of odds and ends the bird can 

 pick up near at hand. In some situations no sticks 

 or twigs are used, and I have examined nests made 

 entirely of rushes from beginning to end. 



Eggs. Three to six, usually five. Pale greenish- 

 blue or bluish-white, spotted, speckled, and blotched 



