WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 89 



the bird preceded the building. Archaeologists tell us 

 that stone buildings of any elevation, whether for 

 religious purposes or defence, were not erected till a 

 comparatively late date in this island. Now, the low 

 huts of primeval peoples would hardly attract the jack- 

 daw. It is the argument of those who believe in im- 

 mutable and infallible instinct that the habits of birds, 

 etc., are unchangeable, the bee building a cell to-day 

 exactly as it built one centuries before our era. Have 

 we not here, however, a modification of habit ? 



The jackdaw could not have originally built in tall 

 stone buildings. Localizing the question to this 

 country, may we not almost fix the date when the 

 jackdaw began to use the church, or the battlements of 

 the tower, by marking the time of their first erection ? 

 The jackdaw was clever enough, and had reason suffi- 

 cient to enable him to see how these high, isolated 

 positions suited his peculiar habits ; and I am bold 

 enough to think that if the bee could be shown a 

 better mode of building her comb, she would in time 

 come to use it. 



In the churchyard, not far from the foot of the tower 

 where the jackdaws are so busy, stands a great square 

 tomb, built of four slabs of stone on edge and a broader 

 one laid on the top. The inscription is barely legible, 

 worn away by the ironshod heels of generations of 

 ploughboys kicking against it in their rude play, and 

 where they have not chipped it, filled with lichen. 

 The sexton says that this tomb hi the olden days was 

 used as the pay-table upon which the poor received 



