OF SELBOENE. 



73 



as you observe, that a bird so common with us should never 

 straggle to you. 1 



And here will be the proper est place to mentioa, while 

 I think of it, an anecdote which the above mentioned gentle- 

 man told me when I was last at his house ; which was that, 

 in a warren joining to his outlet, many daws (Gorvi mone- 

 dulce) build every year in the rabbit burrows under ground. 

 The way he and his brothers used to take their nests, while 

 they were boys, was by listening at the mouths of the holes ; 

 and, if they heard the young ones cry, they twisted the nest 

 out with a forked stick. Some waterfowls (viz. the puffins) 



JACKDAW. 



breed, I know, in that manner ; but I should never have 

 suspected the daws of building in holes on the flat ground. 2 



1 The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert has observed that this bird is met 

 with only on the chalk. He used to find it and its tAvo eggs on the bare 

 ground in September, at Highclere, in Hampshire, but only where there 

 was a chalk subsoil. It never strayed to the sand or gravel, and con- 

 sequently was not upon the lieaths; but in the chalky turnip fields. 

 This statement, though it may be true enough of the locality to which 

 it refers, is not of universal application. See Stevenson's " Birds of 

 Norfolk," vol. ii. pp. 51-64. ED. 



2 The stock-dove and the shell-drake may also be mentioned as 

 species which make use of deserted rabbit -burrows to nest in. ED. 



