326 CORVLDJi. 



he believed, for their young. The first foray of certain country 

 jackdaws, in the early morning, is to the town, where they are very 

 punctual in making their appearance : on the 11th of June, I 

 once noted their arrival at 45 minutes past 3 o'clock.* Here 

 they are quite innocuous ; but in the country, they occasionally 

 levy contributions. Montagu has remarked, that they are " fond 

 of cherries," to the truth of which, many of the gardeners about 

 Belfast could bear testimony. Of all birds they are the most 

 destructive to this fruit. A friend on one occasion coming upon a 

 number regaling in one of his cherry-trees, fired at them, with- 

 out reflecting on the damage he must necessarily do to the 

 tree, and five fell dead to the ground. They and other species, 

 particularly blackbirds [Tardus Merula), for some years entirely 

 consumed the crop of cherries on a number of fine tall standard 

 trees which could not conveniently be netted, and in conse- 

 quence of their depredations, the trees were all cut down. The 

 cherry-trees in the garden of another friend, resident in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Belfast, were sacrificed for a similar reason. In a 

 district well known to me, jackdaws generally associate with rooks, 

 and hence participate both in the good and evil done by these 

 birds to the farm; though, as mentioned in treating of the rook, 

 the former greatly preponderates. In a wild and uncultivated 

 part of the northern coast of the island, I have in summer re- 

 marked flocks of these birds feeding on the sea-shore between 

 tide-marks, and among large stones, grown over with Fuci. 



The sites chosen by the jackdaw for perching are frequently 

 amusing. I have observed four of them, in flying to a vane, 

 alight with the most correct regularity on the letters N. E. S. W., 

 while a fifth surmounted the ball, and thus would they remain 

 stationed for some time, looking "part and parcel" of the weather- 

 cock. On the head of Nelson, as he stands erect in all Iris 

 majesty on the top of the pillar which bears his name in Sackville 

 Street, Dublin, I have seen the jackdaw alight, and impart an air 



* On the 15th of June, 1847, jackdaws were calling and flying ahout London at 

 3 o'clock in the moraine. 



