PERCHING BIRDS. 139 



monedula) is as numerous in our district as the rook, 

 though it does not assemble in those large flocks in 

 which the latter is seen. Its chief nesting places with 

 us are not buildings, ruins, or cliffs, but the huge oaks 

 which are the ornaments of our forest and parks. Every 

 one of these ancient trees is more or less hollow, and 

 two or three pairs, or even more, will make their abode 

 in one tree ; some of the cavities are very large, extend- 

 ing a great distance into the trunk of the tree, although 

 the entrance may be only large enough to admit the 

 bird. 



When a hollow of this kind is selected it is astonish- 

 ing to see what an immense mass of sticks is carried in 

 for the purpose of raising the foundation to within a 

 moderate distance of the entrance. I have seen cavities 

 six or eight feet deep crammed with such a quantity of 

 small sticks as would fill several wheelbarrows ; and I 

 have heard of an instance in which a small spiral stair 

 in a church tower, which was seldom, used, was so 

 choked up with a similar accumulation, that when the 

 door was opened no entrance could be effected until a 

 quantity of sticks, sufficient to fill a cart, had been re- 

 moved. In their strongholds in these hollow trees they 

 rear their young in safety, and as comparatively few 

 attacks are made upon them their numbers are very 

 large. They are as pertinacious in their forays on the 

 newly-sown corn as their larger brethren, the rooks, but 

 their general labours are equally beneficial to the 

 husbandman, larvae being their chief and favourite food. 



They are active, lively birds, and possess a large 

 amount of cunning as well as impudence. I have seen 

 them rob the dinner-baskets of the labourers in the 

 fields ; and it was most amusing to watch the stealthy, 



