THE JACKDAWS NEST 391 



happened to have a rather broad flue, reaching down 

 from parapet to basement. The jackdaws dis- 

 covered the omission, and dropped down it, every 

 morning, enough sticks into the fireplace to light the 

 fire. Finding that the sticks did not " catch on " at 

 the top of the broad flue, so as to make a foundation 

 for the nest, they had, apparently, determined, with 

 robust faith as they will sometimes do in a tower 

 to build it right up, in defiance of all difficulties, 

 from the very bottom. 



In spite of all his shrewdness, the jackdaw is, like 

 the rook, strangely wasteful of his labour, and 

 shows much want of judgment while building his 

 nest in a hollow tree. Why pile up sticks at all in 

 a snug hollow, and why not content himself with 

 that deliciously soft bed of cow's hair and wool and 

 tags and rags of every description, which he always 

 constructs at the top of them, and in which his five 

 or six grey-green eggs, with their black spots and 

 blotches, look so inviting? And why, again, has 

 not hereditary or personal experience taught him 

 that when he wishes to put "a round anything into 

 a square hole," in other words, to get a long stick 

 into a small opening, he must not take it by its 

 middle, and try to thrust it in, in front of him an 

 impossible feat of gymnastics but should hold it 



