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 
