DAWS IN THE WEST COUNTRY 63 



ment when building, in his persistent efforts to carry 

 in sticks too big for the cavity. Here, for instance, 

 each morning in turning over the litter of fallen 

 material I picked up sticks measuring from four or 

 five to seven feet in length. These very long sticks 

 were so slender and dry that the bird was able to 

 lift and to fly with them ; therefore, to his corvine 

 mind, they were suitable for his purpose. It comes 

 to this : the daw knows a stick when he sees one, 

 but the only way of testing its usefulness to him is 

 to pick it up in his beak, then to try to fly with it. 

 If the stick is six feet long and the cavity will only 

 admit one of not more than eighteen niches, he dis- 

 covers his mistake only on getting home. The 

 question arises : Does he continue all his life long 

 repeating this egregious blunder ? One can hardly 

 believe that an old, experienced bird can go on from 

 day to day and year to year wasting his energies 

 in gathering and carrying building materials that 

 will have to be thrown away in the end that he is, 

 in fact, mentally on a level with the great mass of 

 meaner beings who forget nothing and learn nothing. 

 It is not to be doubted that the daw was once a 

 builder in trees, like all his relations, with the ex- 

 ception of the cliff-breeding chough. He is even 

 capable of reverting to the original habit, as I know 



