Birds. 3985 



number, and when he had done so, to wait for and kill the old ones, 

 but not until he had secured the young ones, lest they should be left 

 to starve. This he soon accomplished; and on shooting the old ones 

 while returning to the nest, he found their mouths and throats rilled 

 with the mashed up remains of young birds, — pieces of legs, wings, 

 beaks and feathers. These circumstances leave no possible doubt of 

 the fact that jackdaws take the eggs and destroy the young of other 

 birds, in order to feed their own young. 



The depredations committed by crows, magpies, jackdaws, and 

 other assailants of the eggs and young of game, and of various other 

 birds, is so great, that it is quite surprising the destruction which thus 

 takes place, and how numerous are the nests plundered before the 

 eggs arrive at maturity. It is constantly the case that day after day 

 accounts are brought in that such and such a nest has been destroyed ; 

 and yet partridges and pheasants seem to take a special delight in 

 selecting the most dangerous places to form their nests in, frequently 

 by a path or public road-side ; and it is equally astonishing how they 

 sometimes contrive to sit out their time and hatch their eggs, although 

 the place is passed twenty times in the course of the day, and the hen 

 bird but little concealed from observation, and almost always leaving 

 a track up to her nest, thereby discovering the place she is sitting in. 

 But occasionally a nest is robbed in so mysterious a manner, that it is 

 impossible to discover by what means it is done, even when made in 

 the most secluded places. I have lately lost several nests of wild- 

 ducks' eggs, in a way not to be accounted for. The first had eight 

 eggs, and was built amidst some fern and gorse, on a dry bank close 

 at the back of the keeper's house, in a private spot, away from any 

 thoroughfare. Here, after the duck had sat for a considerable time, 

 six out of the eight eggs were one morning found to be gone, and the 

 other two quite concealed beneath some dry leaves and grass ; but 

 not a mark of any kind could be traced near the nest, and the old duck 

 was seen associated with some mallards and other wild ducks, which 

 had succeeded in rearing their broods on a pool close by. 



A few days after this, in looking near the same spot for the nest of 

 one of the keeper's hens, another wild duck's nest was found, contain- 

 ing twelve eggs, on which the old one was sitting; this she continued 

 to do for about ten days, when, upou the keeper's going to see how 

 matters were going on, having previously put some tarred cording on 

 four sticks around the nest in order to keep off the foxes, and after 

 the placing of which the old duck continued safe on her nest, he found 

 every egg gone, and not a bit of the shells, or the slightest mark, left 

 XI. 2 M 



