PERCHING BIRDS. 127 



There is a curious account, in Loudon's "Magazine 

 of Natural History," for 1833, of the habits of the 

 jackdaws which at one time inhabited, somewhat 

 numerously, the college buildings at Cambridge. 

 In the Botanic Garden of that town there were 

 wooden labels placed before the plants, whose 

 names they bore, made of deal lathes, about nine 

 inches long, and an inch or more broad. As they 

 were thin, these labels, when dry, were pretty 

 light, and the jackdaws speedily discovered that 

 they might serve the same purpose as twiggy 

 sticks off trees, and that they had the great con- 

 venience of being prepared ready for use, and 

 placed very near home. Accordingly, they helped 

 themselves freely, whenever they could do so un- 

 observed ; and they selected the early mornings, 

 before the gardeners came to work, and occasion- 

 ally would venture to perpetrate a theft during 

 the working hours, when they observed the men 

 occupied in a particular part of the garden away 

 from the flower-beds. They also took advantage 

 of the hours for meals, when the coast was left 

 free to them. Their mode of proceeding was 

 thus : the bird would grasp a label edgewise in 

 its beak, and draw it out of the soil. Usually this 

 was accomplished without much 'trouble; but, 

 when more deeply infixed, it would pull the 

 label first to one sidfe then to the other, until it 



