THE JACKDAW 75 



other districts. Large numbers of Jackdaws come to our 

 eastern coast in autumn. 



I have referred more than once to the late Rev. R. 

 Bosworth Smith, but I feel that I must give one other 

 fact here which came to me through a friend of his own 

 who attended his funeral. It has not, I believe, been 

 recorded before. He had a special affection for the bird 

 now under notice. After a very serious operation in 

 London this gentleman and how truly gentle he was, 

 many a one knows declared that he wished "to be 

 back amongst his dear birds again " at Bingham's 

 Melcombe old Manor House. In his delightful book 

 " Bird Life and Bird Lore" he has told us of the falling 

 of the big tree in which eleven pairs of Jackdaws had 

 their ancestral home. It fell, crushing an unlucky cow : 

 that happened to be taking an afternoon nap beneath it. 

 After its fall, the whole colony of daws sat on the stump 

 and held a conference. Other Jackdaws who had lately 

 been shut out by w T irework from the Manor House chim- 

 neys, and more whom the churchwardens had banished 

 from the church belfry were also hard put to, at the same 

 time, to find proper lodgings. Their numbers did not, 

 however, diminish, in the grounds, and when their friend 

 came home to die in the midst of his feathered friends, 

 strangely enough a Jackdaw 7 circled round about the 

 church whilst the last service was held for him, followed 

 the cofrin to the grave, and hovered about this, and 

 near the friends who were there, until the last sad rites 

 were over. If space allowed one could tell other stories 

 of the strange sympathy between birds and their human 

 friends. 



Many a sheep farmer can speak to the services Jackey 

 renders to his sheep in ridding them of their tormentors 



