108 



THE JACKDAW. 



HABITS OF THE JACKDAW. 



This lively bird is the constant friend and com- 

 panion of the rook, in our part of Yorkshire, for 

 nine months out of twelve ; and, I think, there is no 

 doubt but that it would remain with the rook for 

 the other three if it only had that particular kind of 

 convenience for incubation which its nature, for 

 reasons totally unknown to us, seems to require. 



Though the jackdaw makes use of the same kind 

 of materials for building as those which are found 

 in the nest of the rook ; though it is, to all appear- 

 ance, quite as hardy a bird ; and though it passes 

 the night, exposed to the chilling cold and rains of 

 winter, on the leafless branches of the lofty elm; 

 still, when the period for incubation arrives, it bids 

 farewell to those exposed heights where the rook 

 remains to hatch its young, and betakes itself to 

 the shelter which is afforded in the holes of steeples, 

 towers, and trees. Perhaps there is no instance in 

 the annals of ornithology which tells of the jackdaw 

 ever building its nest in the open air. Wishing to 

 try whether these two congeners could not be 

 induced to continue the year throughout in that 

 bond of society which^ I had observed, was only 

 broken during incubation, I made a commodious 

 cavity in an aged elm, just at the place where it 

 had lost a mighty limb, some forty years ago, 

 in a tremendous gale of wind which laid prostrate 



