46 FAMILIAR WILD BIRDS. 



all parts of Great Britain. In this country they affect, 

 as their nesting-places, the holes and crannies of ruins, 

 towers, church-steeples, and other buildings, though often 

 they may be found in chalk and other cliffs or deserted 

 chalk-pits, and at other times will build in the hollows 

 of trees or in chimney-stacks. 



The nest is another instance of the wonderful amount 

 of trouble birds will bestow upon its building ; not that 

 the Jackdaw's is an elaborate structure, but rather a 

 chaotic arrangement of twigs as a foundation (and these 

 almost infinite in number), upon which is laid dried grasses 

 and straw, with an inner lining of wool (sometimes 

 feathers), or any other soft materials. 



The eggs are from four to six in number, though 

 generally five, of a bluish -white, sometimes pale greenish- 

 blue colour, speckled, though more profusely at the larger 

 end, with spots of dark brown and purplish-grey. These 

 eggs are generally deposited in the nest by the middle of 

 May, and the young are hatched about the beginning of 

 June. The young are fed by the parent birds until 

 able to accompany them in their quest for food. 



Of the Jackdaw it may truly be said that he is the 

 early bird that catches the worm, for about daybreak he 

 may be seen quitting his haunts in city or town, cliff or 

 tree, and flying towards the neighbouring meadows, 

 pastures, or ploughed fields, in search of food. This 

 embraces so many objects that it is almost impossible to 

 enumerate them. It principally feeds, however, upon 

 worms, grubs, insects and their larvae, sometimes grain, 

 and, if living near the sea, upon the shell-fish and smaller 

 Crustacea cast up by the tide. 



It therefore is needless to remark that the Jackdaw 



