306 CORVID^E. 



mischievous propensities, their cheerful air and active move- 

 ments often render them favourites. The confidence they 

 so freely shew in mixing with the human community makes 

 them looked upon almost as members of it, and, like some 

 other birds that attach themselves to man, they have gained 

 a familiar name, the particular form of which has doubtless 

 been prompted by the reiterated call-note of their young, 

 closely resembling the word "jack" as pronounced in many 

 English dialects.* Nearly every cathedral and castle, ruined 

 or not, is more or less beset by a host of Jackdaws, and 

 there is hardly a church offering a secure retreat wherein 

 they do not find a lodging. They have utilized Stonehenge, 

 building their nests, as Gilbert White first observed, in the 

 interstices of its prodigious blocks, and they frequently 

 possess themselves of crannies in the face of a chalk-pit or 

 quarry. If the dwellings we inhabit do not commonly har- 

 bour them it is only because convenient recesses are there 

 wanting ; but they often take advantage of chimneys which 

 to the householder's annoyance are occasionally found stopped 

 up by the quantity of sticks they bring together. Away from 

 man's works they occupy holes and cavities in rocks, as well 

 as hollow trees, and these must be deemed their most natural 

 breeding -places, for though they will find quarters under 

 cover of the accumulated masses of nests in a rookery, and, 

 failing other shelter, will make rabbit-burrows serve their 

 purpose, the instances in which they will build or occupy a 

 nest open to the sky are very few in number. t Their per- 

 sistence in collecting sticks with which to construct the nest 

 is one of their most curious characteristics, but at the same 

 time, as Jardine remarks, they often display a great want of 

 instinct, for they will continue to drop the sticks down a 

 wide hole, where perhaps not one will remain, until a huge 

 heap is formed beneath. Waterton even goes further than 



* " Daw " also is obviously a case of onomatopoeia. 



t Besides a case reported to Mr. Morris by Mr. Gr. B. Clarke, the only recorded 

 instances to which reference can here be made are those by Messrs. Hepburn, 

 H. T. Frere and Alston (Zool. pp. 185, 823 and 9572), and of them the second 

 only is quite satisfactory. In this case the nest was about thirty feet from the 

 ground, close to the bole of a silver-fir, composed of twigs and about a foot thick. 



