DAWS IN THE WEST COUNTRY 73 



feather or straw, and then dart down after it and 

 often recover it before it touches the ground. 

 The heavy stick fell straight and fast on to the 

 pile of sticks already lying on the pavement, and 

 instantly the daw was down and had it in his 

 beak, and thereupon laboriously flew up to his 

 nesting-place, which was forty to fifty feet high. 

 At the moment that he rushed down after the 

 falling stick two other daws that happened to 

 be standing on ledges above dropped down after 

 him, and copied his action by each picking up 

 a stick and flying with it to their nests. Other 

 daws followed suit, and in a few minutes there 

 was a stream of descending and ascending daws 

 at that spot, every ascending bird Avith a stick 

 in his beak. It was curious to see that although 

 sticks were lying in hundreds on the pavement 

 along the entire breadth of the west front, the 

 daws continued coming down only at that spot 

 where the first bird had picked up the stick 

 he had dropped. By and by, to my regret, 

 the birds suddenly took alarm at something 

 and rose up, and from that moment not one 

 descended. 



Presently the man came round with his rake 



