OF HARTING. 26 1 



" Our beech trees are for the most part so far past 

 their prime, that they are in a condition to afford 

 excellent accommodation in the nesting season to our 

 resident jackdaws, as well as to many of their friends 

 and connections, who are not slow to perceive the 

 eligibility of the locality, indeed, so very numerous are 

 they at this time, that their frequent raids in the sur- 

 rounding gardens have brought them into exceedingly 

 bad odour with those heads of families whose frugal as- 

 pirations have a special object in abundant crops of 

 peas and beans. To remedy this unsatisfactory state 

 of things, nothing has been deemed more effectual than 

 an occasional ' exhibition ' of No. 5 shot, and this in- 

 volves a greater amount of difficulty than a stranger, 

 casually strolling through the wood they frequent, and 

 not carrying a gun, might suppose. 



" Towards the end of April, when they are engaged 

 in exploring and selecting their nesting places, or 

 desperately fighting to retain possession of them, I 

 can occasionally get a shot at them by cautiously 

 approaching the trees in which they have established 

 themselves, and Rover, who most astonishingly re- 

 members from year to year where they lodge, and 

 invariably directs his attention to every tree in which 

 a hole is visible, has more than once been just in time 

 to settle a dispute among them by a decision against 

 which there is no appeal. One morning this very last 

 spring, for instance, he might have been seen anxiously 

 endeavouring, by repeated bounds up the mossy trunk 

 of an old tree, to reach a hole some twenty or thirty 

 feet high, in which a noisy conflict was going on, and 

 at the same time he was making the wood resound 

 with his impatient summons to the invisible com- 

 batants to make their appearance. After disregarding 

 his invitation for some time, they at length emerged 

 from the hole, when their individual and collective 

 appearance, not only betokened their power to ' dis- 

 guise fair nature with ill-favoured rage,' it also 

 afforded indisputable evidence of the fact that they 



