Jackdaw. 241 



98. JACKDAW (Corvus monedula). 



This lively bird is as well-known as the preceding, with which 

 it lives in the closest alliance, and its active bustling movements, 

 cunning saucy look, and sharp short voice make it a general 

 favourite. Wherever the rooks are feeding, there you may 

 invariably see the Jackdaw strutting about with careless jaunty 

 air, and hear its merry saucy chatter ; it will also perch, like the 

 starling, on the sheep's back, and for the same laudable friendly 

 purpose. Towers and cliffs are its general dwelling-places, but 

 its favourite haunts seem to be our grandest cathedrals and 

 largest colleges, amid the towers and pinnacles of which it loves 

 to nest. Often, however, where suitable buildings are not at 

 hand, it will breed, as it does here, in holes of trees ; and 

 occasionally, where neither building nor trees may be found, it 

 will occupy a rabbit burrow underground, as do also the stock- 

 dove and sheldrake at times.* For the marvellous pillars of 

 sticks which it sometimes builds as a support to its nest, I must 

 refer my readers to the pages of Yarrell, Dresser, Seebohm, and 

 others.f As a proof that the Daw has long been regarded with 

 favourable eyes by the inhabitants of this country, we may 

 remark that it has received the familiar prefix of Jack, just as 

 other feathered favourites are in like manner honoured, as Robin 

 Redbreast, Tom Tit, Jenny Wren, etc. The specific name, 

 inonedula, is derived by Ovid in his account of the nymph 

 Arne being mythically turned into a Daw for having betrayed 

 her country for gold (Metam. vii. 466), from moneta, 'money,' 

 and edo, 'I eat ' (B.O.U.). Professor Skeat says that ' Daw ' is 

 the same as c Caw/ and is derived from the note of the bird. In 

 France it is Choucas ; in Germany, Dohle Robe, ' Drain-crow ;' in 

 Sweden, Kaja ; and in Portugal, Choia, but it is very rare in 

 Portugal and in Spain ; in Italy, Cornacchia. Its plumage is 

 grayish black, glossed with blue, green, and purple, with the 

 exception of the hind part of the neck, which is light gray. 



* Gilbert White's ' Selborne,' Letter xxi. 

 t See, too, Jesse's ' Scenes and Tales of Country Life,' p. 57. 



16 



