128 BRITISH LAND BIRDS. 



succeeded, or would become weary, and leave it. 

 It next proceeded to balance the label in its bill, 

 letting it fall and picking it up again, until it 

 had ascertained the place at which it could be 

 held in equilibrium, when it flew off with it. 

 The number of labels thus annually removed is 

 supposed to have been very considerable, persons 

 who had ascended the tower of Great St. Mary's 

 church, and other towers and steeples, having 

 repeatedly observed wooden labels bearing botan- 

 ical inscriptions, in great numbers lying about in 

 these places. A chimney in one of the professor's 

 houses having been stopped up, the jackdaws 

 built in the upper part of it, and the man-servant, 

 on one occasion, actually took eighteen dozen of 

 the said deal labels from the chimney-shaft. 



