377 Winged Vermin. 



individual rooks as bad as Carrion Crows, with a decided 

 tendency upon their part to adhere to this new mode of 

 living, and to instil the bad habits into their companions. 



The rook upon the game-preserve must receive precisely 

 the same treatment as the crow, the magpie, or the jay, if 

 you would keep on the safe side. 



Jackdaws. 



It would not do to omit all mention of the jackdaw 

 from these pages, because, in common with crows and 

 rooks, it sometimes proves very mischievous amongst 

 game-eggs and game-chicks. It is, however, so generally 

 customary to encourage a colony of jackdaws wherever they 

 appear that it is exceptional for the gamekeeper to have to 

 treat them as vermin. However, where they do exercise 

 their malpractices, it is necessary to employ similar means 

 to prevent them as are effective for other vermin of the 

 crow tribe. 



Magpies and Jays. 



Both trie magpie and the jay are so well known by 

 reason of their somewhat pronounced form and colouring 

 that little description of them is necessary. Both of them 

 cunning to a degree, persistently inquisitive and unceasingly 

 destructive as far as concerns game in almost every form, 

 they combine between them an imposing array of those 

 characteristics most typical of winged vermin. It is not 

 unusual closely to associate the two birds in respect to the 

 depredations they commit, but the intelligent observer will 

 easily learn to discriminate alike between the time and 

 place of their malpractices, and their respective manner of 

 committing them. For all that, they are frequently 

 confounded. 



Inasmuch as a large amount of the warfare which the 



