Tue ZooLocist—Juty, 1876. 4987 
thrush anywhere near, nor was it a likely place for the thrush to be 
locking for his usual food. 
May. 
Jackdaws.—Jackdaws have either been more mischievous this 
year than usual, or I have been more fortunate in observing their 
habits. I have previously noted (see Zool. S. S. 4749) my belief 
that it is common for them to kill young birds “in dry weather 
when worms are scarce,” but I now find that it is a very common 
habit of theirs when worms are plentiful. I have this season on 
several occasions seen them—far from the rocks in which they 
build—flying about from tree to tree on the lower limbs, anxiously 
scanning the herbage beneath for young blackbirds and thrushes, 
both of which are particularly numerous this season. I heard one 
killing a young blackbird in a beech tree, but ‘the tree is so bushy 
—a nearly solid mass—that I could neither see the performance 
nor get up afterwards, so I cannot say whether he was not robbing 
a nest of young. Both the parent blackbirds were there, and 
apparently did their best to protect their young; but Jack went 
on with his business, muttering his name all the time; the black- 
birds at last saw me and flew away, and Jack was at once silent, 
and after a second or two looked out, and, seeing me, made off 
without his prey. I have also had proofs that they rob the 
pheasants’ nests, by their dropping the eggs on the road as they 
are carrying them across to their nests; and a few days since I 
caught one in a trap baited with a young rabbit: the eyes of the 
rabbit were both cleanly taken out, and he had been pecking it 
behind the ear, exactly after the manner of the Royston crow. I 
may mention that on the 16th of April I saw a jackdaw flying 
about in the Dene with a large morsel in his beak; a number of 
other jackdaws were chasing him and trying to take it from him; 
he at last settled with it on a tree. I watched him for some time 
with a glass, but no attempt was made to eat it then. 
Curious Nesling Freak of the Spotted Flycatcher.—On the 18th 
I was taken to see what was supposed to be a very curious nesting 
freak of the chaffinch; the nest, or rather nests, might easily pass 
for that of the chaffinch, but there can be little doubt it is the work 
of a spotted flycatcher. It was placed on a beam at the side of a 
pump, beneath the platform on which people stand to pump 
water; the nest is a double one, of an irregular oval form at the 
base, sloping up much more on one side than the other, until it 
