188 OMNIVORJE. 



and weighs between nine and ten ounces. The bill, feet, top 

 of the head, and wing-coverts and secondary quills are black. 

 The back of the head and nape smoke-grey, and the irides 

 the same but much lighter. The remaining parts black, with 

 a greyish tinge on the upper side, and a bluish on the under. 

 The black is variously glossed with blue and violet reflections. 

 These are the ordinary colours ; but like all birds that inhabit 

 cultivated lands, and are of course affected by the differences 

 to which cultivation gives rise, jack-daws vary considerably 

 in colour, partly from age, partly not ; sometimes the grey is 

 nearly white, at other times the bird is black all over and 

 there are many slighter and intermediate variations. 



Holes and chinks are the immediate places in which jack- 

 daws nestle ; but these must be elevated above the level 

 ground, and the higher they are the bird likes them the 

 better. It is probable that the original instinct is the pro- 

 tection of its eggs and young from the weasels. Rocks, the 

 edges of neglected quarries, the projecting parapets of bridges, 

 towers, steeples, ruins, the earth where it forms a very steep 

 and crumbling bank, are all resorted to by the jack-daws ; 

 and one would imagine that the birds are fonder of the 

 society of man than of having the locality to themselves. 

 But the fact is, that these birds court the vicinity of human 

 dwellings for the same reason as the house-swallows, because 

 insects are most abundant there. Fifty towers might be built 

 in an insectless wilderness, and never a jack-daw would come 

 to nestle in them. 



In the winter months, the jack -daws and rooks flock 

 together, and collect their food on the same fields, and of 

 the same kind, without any hostility; but in the spring, 

 when the rooks return to the rookery or the trees, the jack- 

 daws collect about the rocks and towers. Their habits are, 

 indeed, very similar to those of the rooks, with the exception 

 of the places in which they nestle, and the materials of the 



