THE DAW SENTIMENT 265 



at intervals, not as rooks and starlings do merely 

 because they are gregarious, but purely for social 

 purposes to play and converse with one another* 

 Its language at such times is so various as to be a 

 surprise and delight to the listener ; while its ways 

 of amusing itself, its clowning and the little tricks 

 and practical jokes the birds are continually playing 

 on each other, is a delight to witness. All this is 

 lost in a caged bird* He is handsome to look at and 

 remarkably intelligent, but he distinguishes between 

 magpies and men ; he doesn't reveal himself ; his 

 accomplishments, vocal and mental, are for his own 

 tribe* In this he differs from the daw; for the 

 daw is less specialised ; he is an undersized common 

 crow, livelier, more impish than that bird, also more 

 plastic, more adaptive, and takes more kindly to 

 the domestic or parasitic life* Human beings to 

 him are simply larger daws, and unlike the pie he 

 can play his tricks and be himself among them as 

 freely as when with his feathered comrades* We like 

 him best because he makes himself one of us. 



Undoubtedly the chough comes nearest to the 

 daw mentally, and as it is a far more beautiful bird 

 the poor daw having little of that quality it 

 would probably have been our prime favourite 

 among the crows but for its rarity* Formerly it 

 was a common pet bird, caged or free, in all the coast 

 districts where it inhabited, and it may be that the 



