XXXVI 

 THE JACKDAW 



THE jackdaw, although numbered among 

 the birds of India, has not succeeded in 

 establishing itself in the plains. Large 

 numbers of jackdaws visit the Punjab in 

 winter, where they keep company with the house 

 crows and the rooks, the three species appearing to 

 be on the best of terms. At the first approach of the 

 warm weather the daws, the rooks, and the majority 

 of the ravens betake themselves to Kashmir or to 

 Central Asia, leaving the house crows to represent 

 the genus Corvus in the plains of the Punjab. The 

 jackdaw {Corvus monedula) is in shape and colouring 

 Uke our friend Corvus splendens, differing only in its 

 smaller size arid in having a white iris to the eye. 

 As is the case with the common Indian crow, individual 

 jackdaws differ considerably in the intensity of the 

 greyness of the iieck. In some specimens the sides 

 of the neck are nearly white. Of these systematists 

 have made a new species, which they call C. collaris. 

 Gates, I am glad to observe, decUnes to recognise 

 this species. A jackdaw is a jackdaw all the world 

 over, and it is absurd to try to make him anything else. 



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