156 BIRDS' NESTS AND NESTING WAYS 



Probably the most familiar instance of birds 

 nesting in high trees is that of the rooks, a 

 gregarious race, living in large colonies, and 

 preferably near human habitations. Their nest 

 is a crude structure of sticks and twigs, which 

 they bite off with their powerful beaks, with some 

 coarse lining of grass or the like. Their con- 

 geners, the carrion crow and hooded crow, on 

 the contrary, nest in single pairs in trees or on 

 cliffs and crags, and generally use some wool in 

 the lining. The magpie, which also prefers 

 solitude, strikes out a line for itself, building a 

 large structure strongly domed and covered with 

 thorns, generally at a considerable height ; pos- 

 sibly a guilty conscience causes it to fear 

 reprisals. The jackdaw is to be found in larger 

 or smaller colonies, nesting in hollow trees, or 

 in holes and crevices in cliffs, or in ruins, or in 

 church steeples ; often, too, as many of us have 

 experienced, in house chimneys. 



A distinct type of nest is that of the wood 

 pigeon, a mere platform of sticks and twigs, so 

 sparse that often the eggs may be seen through 

 the bottom ; and yet, although so fragile in 

 appearance, it seems to resist successfully the 

 wildest storms. 



Would that we might still number that noble 

 bird, the osprey, among our native tree-building 



