66 Wild Life in a Southern County 



place? The bird has become so associated with churches 

 that it is difficult to separate the two ; yet it is certain 

 that the bird preceded the building. Archseologists 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 jackdaw. It is the argu- 

 ment of those who believe in immutable and infallible 

 instinct that the habits of birds, &c., 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. Localising 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 sufficient 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 plough- 

 boys kicking against it in their rude play, and where they 

 have not chipped it, filled with lichen. The sexton says 

 that this tomb in the olden days was used as the pay-table 

 upon which the poor received their weekly dole. His 

 father told him that he had himself stood there hungry, 

 with the rest not broken-down cripples and widows, but 



