490 Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds 0/ Ireland. 



ed on the beach kn- manure. About two miles inland from Ballan- 

 trae, in Ayrshire, a few hundreds of these birds, in the autumn of 

 1839, regularly roosted on the ground upon a rising knoll in a pas- 

 ture-field. I first saw them thereat eight o'clock p.m. on the 20th 

 of August ; and afterwards, on returning late from grouse-shooting 

 in distant moors, they were always to be seen. This roosting-place 

 was in the midst of a cultivated district, in which there was no wood 

 of sufficient age to be patronized by the rook. At the commence- 

 ment of a snow-storm in England, and after the ground became well 

 covered, I was once amused at seeing a rook rolling in the snow, 

 apparentl}^ enjoying itself as much as a Newfoundland dog could 

 have done *. In summer I have met with the rook in Holland, 

 France and Switzerland, and in some parts of the first-named coun- 

 try observed that it was as common as in its chief haunts in the 

 British Islands. At the Hotel Bellevue, which is situated close to 

 the king's park at the Hague, I for the first time experienced the 

 evils of a rookery, the cawing from a closely adjacent one being 

 so incessant from daybreak as to drive all sleep from me, unaccus- 

 tomed as I was to such music ; — this was at the end of May, when 

 the calls of the young are almost constantly uttered. 



The rook has attracted the attention of authors possessing a cele- 

 brity of a very different kind. In the ' Bracebridge Hall' of Wash- 

 ington Irving, an admirable chapter is devoted to it. Goldsmith 

 gives a very interesting account of its nestling in the Temple Gar- 

 dens, London, as observed by himself, A most grajjhic description 

 of its manner of life about Selborne is furnished by White. Sir 

 Wm. Jardine introduces it in a picturesque manner as an adjunct to 

 the scenery of the park ; and Mr. ]VIacgillivray, as if conceiving that 

 the subject had already been quite exhausted, imparts a new feature 

 to the history of the bird, by visiting a rookery at night, and relating 

 the proceedings at that period. 



The Jackdaw, Corvus Monedidafljinn./xs found through- 

 out the island^ especially where the labour of man is evinced 

 by buildings, the plantation of trees, and the cultivation of 

 the ground. But it is much more interesting to meet with 

 this bird in its more wild and natural abode in the bold and 

 precipitous cliffs which it frequents, whether inland or ma- 

 rine. 



The basaltic precipices of the north-east of Ireland are much re- 

 sorted to b}'' these birds, and I believe at all seasons — in the month 

 of October, in diff'erent years, I have observed them at the approach 

 of evening to gather in as great numbers as in summer, to roost in 

 the rocks at the Cavehill, near Belfast. In the wild peninsula of the 

 Horn (co. Donegal) they breed in the marine cliffs, and according to 

 the late T. F. Neligan, Esq., of Tralee, they nestle in caverns in 

 very small islands about three miles distant from the coast of Kerry. 

 On the 29th of May, 1836, I saw many jackdaws at the sandy pre- 



* Watevton in his ' Essays on Natural History ' mentions a tame raven 

 acting similarly. 



