10 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



on the west side of the hill. This was repeated again 

 and again. The old birds led the way, and the young 

 being merely learners, and not so strong of wing as the 

 adults, were occasionally blown far out of the course 

 aimed at. Before each dive they always hovered a 

 minute or two in the wind, high above the cliff. My 

 seat was a short way from the edge of the cliff, but 

 I sat very still, and the rooks paid no attention to 

 my presence. 



The Jackdaw. — A somewhat wonderful change has 

 taken place within the last fifty or sixty years as to 

 the population and ways of the jackdaw family. I 

 remember the time when almost the only nesting places 

 of these birds were ruinous abbeys and towers, and 

 precipitous cliffs overhanging rivers and disused quarries. 

 Now they nest in vast numbers in all the accessible 

 crannies and nooks in the heart of the busiest 

 manufacturing and other towns in Roxburghshire and 

 Selkirkshire, and are a plague to householders because 

 of their nesting and their never-ceasing to attempt to 

 nest in their house chimneys. They, by hard and per- 

 severing work, often dislodge wires fixed on chimneys 

 to prevent their nesting. They also now nest pretty 

 freely in the same woods with rooks, and build open 

 nests like these birds. These nests are more compactly 

 built than rook nests, and the densest trees of the 

 rookery are always selected for sites. The immense 

 increase of late years in their numbers, and the decrease 

 perhaps in the number of their old holdings, have no 

 doubt driven the daws into fresh fields and pastures 

 new as regards habitation. Now, too, they fly afield 

 with rooks more numerously and more frequently than 

 they did of old ; and when so flying, it is interesting 

 to note that their flight is always in the most airy 

 ranks above the rooks. After nightfall, at the time 

 when rooks and jackdaws have young ones in their 



