222 JACKDAWS. 



experience, it was deemed advisable for one of the birds 

 to remain constantly at the nest, to repel any attempts 

 that might be made upon it by their enemies. So 

 rigorously indeed, was this caution observed, that the 

 one remaining at home, was suppied with food by the 

 other. Many attempts were, notwithstanding, made 

 upon it, but the united energies of these two persevering 

 birds enabled them to rear their nestlings in spite of the 

 determined opposition of the original possessors of the 

 adjacent rookery. 



The habits of a Jackdaw are known to everybody : 

 wherever found, he is the same active, bustling, cheerful, 

 noisy fellow. Whether in the depth of a shady wood, 

 " remote from cities and from towns," or, whether esta- 

 blished in the nooks and niches of some Gothic cathedral- 

 tower, in the very midst of the world, it matters not to 

 him. He seems to know neither care nor sorrow, ever 

 satisfied always happy ! Who ever saw or heard of a 

 moping, melancholy Jackdaw ? 



We have in England another bird much resembling 

 him in manners and colour, though from certain distin- 

 guishing features, such as a bent orange-coloured beak 

 and legs, &c., it has been placed in another division of 

 birds. It is the Red-legged Crow or Chough, never seen 

 in most part of our island, though in its favourite haunts, 

 in front of high precipices arid steep rocks by the sea, 

 often very abundant. Like Jackdaws, the Choughs are 

 easily tamed, and are as entertaining, and at the same 

 time as troublesome when tamed. On a lawn, where 

 five were kept, one particular part of it was found to 

 turn brown, and exhibit all the appearance of a field suf- 

 fering under severe drought, covered as it was with dead 

 and withering tufts of grass, which it was soon ascer- 

 tained the Choughs were incessantly employed in tearing 

 up the roots, for the purpose of getting at the grubs, 

 already alluded to in our description of Rooks. The 

 way they set about it was this : they would walk quietly 

 over the surface, every now and then turning their 



