52 BIRDS IN LONDON 



CHAPTER IV 



THE LONDON DAW 



Earity of the daw in London — Pigeons and daws compared — 

 JEsthetic value of the da«v as a cathedral bird — Kensington 

 Palace daws ; their disposition and habits — Friendship with 

 rooks — Wandering daws at Clissold Park — Solitary daws — 

 Mr. Mark Melford's birds — Eescue of a hundred daws — The 

 strange history of an egg-stealing daw — White daws — White 

 ravens — Willughby's speculations — A suggestion. 



It is somewliat curious to find that the jackdaw 

 is an extremely rare bird in London — that, in 

 fact, with the exception of a smaU colony at one 

 spot, he is almost non-existent. At Richmond 

 Park, where pheasants (and the gamekeeper's 

 traditions) are preserved, he was sometimes shot 

 in the breeding season ; but in the metropolis, 

 so far as I know, he has never been persecuted. 

 Yet there are few birds, certainly no member of 

 the crow family, seemingly so well adapted to a 

 London life as this species. Throughout the 

 kingdom he is a familiar town bird ; in one 

 English cathedral over a hundred pairs have 



